No but tbh that's a perfect example of what I was thinking of

YEA BABEY

Genuinely kind of yes, because there was a bunch of discourse around someone copying someone else's pattern emulating Chris Evans' sweater from that movie

It's essentially democratized patronage at scale. Maybe not a perfect system but my point is: alternatives exist! We could live in a better world that supports independent creators without artificial scarcity. I'm rambling a bit here, to be fair, but I believe in the commons and a better system ❤️

We don't live in luxury space communism etc atm but I do want to highlight a cool proposal from 2003 here. It's one of the most concrete alternatives to copyright funding wherein the public collectively decides who to fund, using money that would otherwise go to taxes. cepr.net/publications...

If a big player starts acquiring pattern catalogs/a platform changes its terms of service, designers could find themselves legally estranged from their own work. Copyright is a tool that scales with legal resources. It will always serve the biggest player in the room better than the smallest.

But they're defending something that doesn't really exist in law (finished objects aren't copyrightable), and serves them only as long as the industry stays unconsolidated.

BUT yarn designers are often more independent. The big names mostly aren't in the business of acquiring pattern IP. So I think many designers imagine copyright as *their* tool. People might advocate for stronger protections imagining themselves as the enforcers rather than the enforced against.

if, say, Alex Hirsch tried to publish "fanfiction" of Gravity Falls on ao3 under his own name just because he felt like it, on his own time, he'd be sued into oblivion by the company that *owns his work* for *using his own characters*!)

One interesting contrast to me is how in the field of art, animation, games, etc, a lot of the time copyright takes the work *out* of the hands of creators (as someone on here pointed out the other day, and sadly I don't remember who, YOU can publish Gravity Falls fanfic on ao3 and be fine. BUT-

Copyright is a middleman. It says: you get paid if you successfully enforce artificial scarcity on infinitely copyable files. That's a precarious, adversarial way to fund creative work!!! To me, the problem isn't insufficient *ownership*. It's inadequate direct support for creative labour.

The restrictions exist through intimidation and legal ambiguity, not actual enforceable law. Meanwhile the designers who are thriving are often building Patreons, teaching workshops, selling yarn kits, creating video courses, and other revenue streams that don't depend on controlling who knits what.

The Discord piracy drama, constant copying debates etc, to me reveal copyright's failure, not its necessity. Designers struggle economically even when they *have* rights. No publisher has ever taken a "selling finished objects" case to trial. The designer making $50/month can't afford to sue anyone!

(Also notably plagiarism and copyright violation aren't always the same thing: plagiarism = lying about who created something. Taking credit for work that isn't yours. Which is wrong! But different from copyright as a property claim. You can maintain honest attribution without ownership.)

And yet also, the community already functions largely as a commons. Knitters freely share modifications/tips. Traditional techniques are public domain. Ravelry's tagging system creates attribution chains without legal compulsion. A lot of the time reputation matters more than *legal* enforcement.

Yet designers understandably feel protective: they might spend 6-8 months and hundreds of dollars developing a single pattern!!! Meanwhile 72% of Ravelry designers earn less than $50/month. The economics are brutal.

Pattern instructions are copyrightable, but a finished sweater/sock almost certainly isn't. At least in the US, bc of "useful articles" doctrine, functional clothing often can't be copyrighted. Those "no selling finished objects" restrictions are likely unenforceable. copyright.gov/register/va-...

My good friend Ryuunosuke Naruhodo is there to help

This song. A year ago they found out it was Subways of your Mind by a German New Wave band called Fex. Holy shit
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGf...