Comments on: The lawyer who represents herself…

By: mamaloo

mamaloo — Tue, 30 May 2006 14:00:10 +0000

Oh, I forgot to ask: how did you get the tip off, Jenna? Or did you have a hunch?

By: mamaloo

mamaloo — Tue, 30 May 2006 13:58:45 +0000

Wow! The balls on some people!

I really hope this resolves in your favour.

I’d be interested to see the contents of the “boleros” booklet to see if my own pattern (which has gone through its own copyright infringement problem, humble pattern that it is). It sickens me to give any money to this creep.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 30 May 2006 12:25:46 +0000

I was just checking out some of this guy’s other auctions, and one of the pictured hats in the “30 Knitted Baby Hats” collection seems to have been taken directly from the elann website. Incredible.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 30 May 2006 12:22:45 +0000

How did you find out about this? These people are certainly counting on the long odds that the original designer would discover that their pattern had been appropriated. It will be interesting to hear what, if any, defense this person tries to offer.

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 30 May 2006 12:02:04 +0000

I think if you notify eBay they will also shut the seller down – but I’m not absolutely sure about that. If a person’s activity is illegal, they aren’t supposed to put up with it. Best of luck, and I’m dying to know what a full-blown cease-and-desist is…because that one definitely puts the hammer down! You go girl.

By: Carol

Carol — Tue, 30 May 2006 10:30:45 +0000

Good for you, Jenna. Keep us updated.

By: janine

janine — Tue, 30 May 2006 09:48:50 +0000

Wow what some people will do for a quick buck! I shall have to go and see if any of my patterns are there as well. Thanks for the heads up on thsi

By: j.

j. — Tue, 30 May 2006 08:13:50 +0000

Eliza: Thanks. Just lovely.

So this traces back to “craftypiggies” who’s on Payloadz (but I’m unable to search for other items because the db/query thing is broken), who’s also on eBay here. With… eBooks!

It wouldn’t be surprising if this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Some of this goldskyuk’s items don’t have this “resale” offer… it looks like the “master resell licence” was offered for the “vintage” collections, but not for collections that goldskyuk decided to compile himself. (I hope.) This particular one I wrote about has PDF security enabled and every page has a copyright notice (for Goldsky Media) on every page.

On the otherhand, I think Goldsky Media is also selling the “vintage” collections on other sites besides eBay, based on a Google search.

Chris: The first complaint to eBay has to be by fax. So I’m giving this guy a grace period until I have a chance to contact the rest of the companies (and get to the place where I have a working fax machine).

Beth: I looked. So she reopened as handmade-in-england, and it’s that berry pattern that she says she “adapted”?

By: eliza

eliza — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:12:46 +0000

doh. got passionate and forgot the point.

My point is that he may not be the only one, and you might find that you’re sending out an awful lot of those letters, if there have been others who have purchased the initial copy with a notice like that attached.

Is it possible just to forego the letters and send a couple of us knitters out with heavy pointysticks to break their kneecaps?

By: eliza

eliza — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:11:16 +0000

oh, man. What’s worse is that you may end up with a bigger problem — I don’t think this guy whipped up his own collected PDF pattern, and may actually -believe- he’s got copyright permission. Looking over his stuff, it looks like he buys ebooks from various places that have that “reseller permission” thing at the end, and..well….resells them. Looking up his book on the 20 vintage crochet patterns in google, it comes up with a payloadz site that says at the end:

“Free bonus:

Free resell rights to this manual. You will get a sales letter just like this one, where you can resell this manual and keep 100% of the profits! Reselling is simple, just add your order link, upload the sales page and report to your own hosting account and promote for 100% profits from all sales generated from your site! ”

So he MAY have BOUGHT this book thinking he COULD resell it with permission. He may have NO idea that it’s YOURS to begin with.

I hate these people. Grrrr.