What falls under Copyright and how to protect yourself is a huge topic among crafters. As crafters we take inspiration from any number of places but if you are looking to sell on your items you will need to be careful with how you use your inspiration.
Trademark
Many companies trademark their names or advertising slogans. Therefore these could not be used on products to sell on. Although these maybe used in every day life to refer to items to actually sell items displaying their names may break the law. Common examples are Coca cola, Suzuki and Eddie Stobart.
Characters
As crafters it is so tempting to jump on the bandwagon with the latest fashion or craze. Many crazes particularly children’s will be under copyright protection. Copyright will cover all cartoon or film characters. You can not sell any items that resemble a character that you have made. Some common examples are Disney characters, superheroes, Thomas the Rand Engine and Winnie the Pooh.
Phrases
Copyright can cover phrases or sayings. This means for certain pieces of text permission would need to be obtained to be able to use them in your products. Some copyrighted phrases are girlboss, because your worth it and lovin’ it.
Patterns
If you use a pattern that you have not created yourself to make up your items then the pattern could be protected by copyright. Pattern writers will protect their knitting, crochet or sewing patterns to prevent people selling them on. The copyright protection for the pattern will be on the pattern or in the information about the pattern at purchase.
Many crafters will simply say “well everyone does it” however this does not make it legal or protect those people from ever being caught and prosecuted.
To overcome copyright there are two approaches that can be taken
Option 1 – avoid copyright at all costs
Sounds simple enough, avoid using anything that may be trademarked. Not using famous characters, sayings or trademarks in your products will protect you from legal action.
Option 2 – obtain permission
As a crafter you can approach the holder of the trademark and ask for permission to create items and sell them. Pattern makers will regularly give permission if approached and asked. It is however more rare from large companies like Disney.
I’ve learnt as my business has grown if you would like to see what other lessons I learnt see my blog post https://claireyatfairycrafters.com/craft-business-lessons-learnt/
Hopefully this has given you some food for thought without completely terrifying you. Obviously if you are looking at making items to keep yourself or to gift on them you would be able to ignore these laws. However selling on would automatically be an infringement.
If you are looking for more information on how to protect your own work the government website has some information available https://www.gov.uk/copyright
