when it comes to running a small creative biz, one of the most common concerns surrounds the question of copyright and intellectual property. while laws differ from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there are some common questions i’ve been asked by my design students over the years as well as questions i’ve had to find answers for myself with my own biz. while we’ll be talking in this blog post specifically about knitwear pattern design, a lot of the material extends to other intellectual property as well. let’s get started!

an important caveat before we get started: i, ash, am not a lawyer, and i do not know what the specific laws are where you live. therefore, this is not legal advice. if you have a serious legal concern, find a lawyer in your area who specializes in copyright and intellectual property disputes. also, there is a shit ton of greyscale within this area, so if you prefer black-and-white answers, prepare to be disappointed.

how do i protect my patterns from being stolen?

there are a few different areas to focus on here, and each has a different set of possible solutions - namely, practical tech tips, recommendations for online boundaries, and mindset work. they’re all intertwined, of course, but depending on where you’re at in your personal situation, one solution might be a lot more useful than others.

solution a:

so let's say we want to protect our digital patterns and while we recognize that there's only so much actual legal protection we can expect/access/afford, we still wanna do our best to protect our content. i'm gonna remind you once again that copyright laws and legal protections vary widely and are often extremely hard to enforce when you're not a giant corporation, so that's not what we're talking about here. what we are talking about today is how to protect your content using some basic tech tools:⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 you can use watermarks on your photos, as these are a pain in the ass for others to then try to steal your photography and pass it off as their own⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 you can also place items with your logo throughout your photos (easier to photoshop out than watermarks, but they're prettier for your own use)⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 use your body and YOUR FACE in photos - same reasoning behind items with your logos, and while it's not gonna stop someone from trying to pass off your image as theirs, it does provide very obvious recognition/connection if someone does know you/your brand and comes across someone else trying to sell your shit⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 use strong passwords and encryptions so your accounts aren't easily hackable⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 have multiple places that you're engaging with your audience so if you are hacked (on ig, for example), you can still reach your audience (via your newsletter, for example)⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 use tech software that locks your pdfs and doesn't allow their content to be copy and pasted to other places (keep in mind this might fuck with accessibility tools, so do your research here)⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 have clear no-refund policies on digital purchases and copyright listed on all downloadable documents and across your websites/newsletters/etc.⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 make sure your online shop is secure and requires completed purchase using a trusted payment platform before someone can access their purchase.⁠

🧑🏻‍💻 remember that a "customer" who prefers a free illegal version over paying you $10 isn't your ideal customer anyway

solution b:

let's talk about how we show up online. look, i'm not saying that showing up to your feed every day in a disregulated anxious state is a good idea. in fact, i highly recommend accessing therapy and other tools to help you get out of that state as a baseline. that being said, as my therapist kindly reminds me, "there's paranoia and then there's intuition based on lived experiences." so, with that in mind, here are my personal tools/rules (which you're welcome to use) for what to do when i'm feeling the internet creepy-crawlies around protecting my content:

🔒 use strong passwords and encrypted files/platforms for your content

🔒 don't share drafts of work with anyone unnecessary (your tech editor needs to see that draft version, the third-party publication who hasn't sent you a contract yet does not)

🔒 if you're feeling really anxious/paranoid about a certain person/company, feel free to use that block button. remove them from mailing lists, block their email address from making purchases if you can/need to. this shouldn't be your go-to for many people, but if you've got one or two concerns and removing their access will make you feel safer so you can show up to your biz in a stronger way, have at it.

🔒 if someone does copy your shit and/or you find copied versions blatantly using your content (photos to sell a product, etc. etc.), decide based on your capacity and current circumstances about whether you want to try to fight them (publicly or behind the scenes), legally solve the matter, or focus your attention on the audience you are cultivating who supports you and ignore whatever shit is happening outside of that (aka trust karma/the universe). personally, i've opted for the last solution most often and prefer it the most. i'm also a highly emotional/sensitive creature and the emotional labour involved with the others can literally make me ill. you decide what feels best for you, and be prepared for whatever consequences come as a result. apply those lessons moving forward too.

solution c:

i want to talk about a really massive factor that we often don't acknowledge: scarcity mindset. i'm absolutely not saying that having a "positive" or "abundant" mindset around someone legit stealing your shit is the solution here. that's bullshit. what i AM saying is that capitalism is an asshat that breeds a competition/all or nothing/me vs. the world energy that is a) exhausting b) honestly useless 99% of the time and c) makes us see monsters that don't really exist 👹 ⁠

when it comes to the world of knitwear design, we are talking about a practice that is thousands of years old, has roots around the whole world, and currently sees tens of thousands of designers releasing hundreds of thousands of patterns. so if someone else releases a triangle shawl using the same lace stitch that you did, chances are a lot better that you bought the same stitch dictionary (or even a different one, considering most of the popular stitches out there) or saw the same pinterest pin than that they stalked your online content, took extensive notes, somehow accessed your pattern draft, and copied it word for word. but scarcity mindset wants us to think that the latter is more likely, and so we feel defensive, angry, defeated, all the shitty things 💩⁠

fuck that noise. ⁠

look, mindset work is fucking hard, and it is constantly ongoing and entirely necessary. and that is part of growing as a human, and it's a good thing, and it can be pretty messy sometimes, and that's also ok. making a certain amount of money or releasing a certain number of patterns or being in business for a certain number of years doesn't make that work go away. but it does make things easier over the long term. i am glad that i've prioritized it so much, because it's way better to hit these moments from a place of self-awareness and curiosity rather than defensiveness/denial/blame. abundance mindset deals with a lot more than just monies, honeys. ⁠

is it copying if i use a named technique or stitch from a stitch dictionary in my pattern?

the short answer is no unless the technique/stitch is registered as a trademark (and even then, it’s highly unlikely that any legal footing will be held outside of the registration’s country).

the longer answer is a little more complicated and will come down to your personal ethos around content sharing and how common the technique/stitch may be. we are dealing with a practice that has roots around the world and across hundreds and hundreds of years. it’s honestly extremely unlikely that anyone truly comes up with an absolute innovation in the world of handknitting these days. that being said, there are some techniques and occasionally even some stitches which may be associated with a certain person (for example, judy’s magic toe cast-on is colloquially referred to as exactly that - who precisely is judy? no idea, but she makes magic). if you learned a specific technique from a certain teacher or resource, you can absolutely mention it in your pattern and/or marketing copy. you are not obliged to, but depending on some factors (i.e. are you using a culturally relevant technique? definitely reference that. are you using a technique that has a common name that you can link to for a tutorial? please do, and save yourself some pattern support emails while you’re at it!), you may wish to.

if you develop what you feel is a unique stitch or technique and choose to offer it out to the world as either a free or paid offering (a pattern, a book, a zine, a blog post…), the most that you can reasonably expect is that some people will give a nod to you when it first becomes available. maybe you’ll even be lucky enough become like judy (whoever the real judy really was). but if you feel extremely precious about a technique/stitch and feel like you need to be compensated for it in perpetuity, a) register it within your jurisdiction and you’ll retain at least a bit of legal grounding and also b) question why you feel so precious about it and figure out whether you actually do want to share this knowledge with others. our preciousness is often rooted in scarcity mentality, and while our feelings are always valid, we do need to analyze our responses to figure out whether those feels are serving us best.

what do i do if i feel like someone is copying my work?

you can always try having an open conversation. keep in mind that the other person may have no idea what you’re talking about - this is not gaslighting you or your feelings, they just may express a different experience than yours (including that they may not know who you are…the internet tends to make us feel more significant on the wider scale than irl sometimes). on the other hand, they may absolutely be copying you and gaslight you in their response when you confront them. and then there are a whole host of other possibilities that range between those two extremes.

as knitwear designers, most of us are using the same stitch dictionaries, working with the same basic math/construction methods, and seeing the same damn pins on pinterest year after year after year. also, knitting is ultimately part of the fashion industry, which does have trends, and so you may find similarities appearing across many designers - is brioche suddenly in vogue for a few years? suddenly everyone is knitting with speckled yarns? personally, i’m doing my damnedest to push the trend of all-over texture with naturally dyed colour palettes on natural fibres. i’ll let you know when all the yarn shops are knocking down my studio door for restocks every few weeks (it’s not quite there yet).

if you’re seriously concerned about a specific person, feel free to block them in as many channels as possible, remove them from your newsletter list, and refund any orders they place with you (although tbh they’re unlikely to actually give you money if they’re being that sketchy). sometimes we just need the mental support of not worrying about something that feels like a threat, because it gives us the emotional space to be creatively free. from personal experience, i also highly recommend therapy and working on your scarcity mindset (capitalism breeds it into us) - it’s a lot less stressful to look at others in your industry as community rather than competition. some of my best friends run nearly identical businesses to me, and we’ve made a point of referring paying customers to one another for years because we a) trust one another b) want to celebrate each other’s genius and c) end up with the lovely side effect of getting that effort paid back to us (literally!) regularly.

i used a stitch on pinterest to make a triangle shawl pattern with a garter stitch border. i saw someone else on instagram post a similar pattern. is that considered copyright infringement?

nope. see above for more details.

i have a really defined brand aesthetic. how do i make sure it’s not stolen/copied by others?

short answer: you can’t.

longer answer: chances are very good that you yourself were inspired by several other brands as you went through the creative process of defining your aesthetic. that doesn’t make what you landed on any less valid or unique to you. we are all inundated with images and inspiration on a daily basis, whether that’s from the trees in our neighbourhood or the very targeted marketing messages we receive via the media. we filter those things through our personal lenses, decide what makes an impact, and take things on accordingly.

once again, the main lesson here is to be consistent in your own work. if you have a defined brand aesthetic and you love it, there’s no reason to question it or change it just because others have similar brands. in fact, that often just means you have an overlap in audiences, and may be a sign of a potential collaboration partner!

i used a professional designer for my website/branding and now i see someone else has a similar [insert blank]. did my designer steal/recycle material and am i at risk now?

professional graphic designers, website designers, and brand designers often work off a series of templates, sometimes completely recycling the basic content (fonts, colours, layouts) and just updating them with your photos and written copy. this is completely legal and actually what you end up doing yourself when you use free templates from website builders like squarespace and shopify. you should not be at risk in most cases (i say that because there is always a chance for something fishy to be happening and, again, i am not a lawyer looking at your specific case). the more likely scenario is that you feel annoyed because your content doesn’t feel so unique.

there are simple things you can do to address this:

use your own photos rather than stock photography
create a unique webfont (for example, my actual handwriting was turned into the font that i use for my created content’s titles/subtitles and in my logo)
figure out what makes your brand unique and be consistent across all your communication channels - at least if your website looks similar to others, you still look like an overall cohesive brand!
hire a designer to create an entirely unique brand for you (be prepared to pay a lot of money for this)

at the end of the day, it’s almost always going to be a better use of your energy to keep your eyes on your own paper. if you know that you’re doing the work when it comes to your brand and designing, that’s what’s important, and what will define your business so customers know whether they connect with you or not. more about that next week…

do you have a question that wasn’t answered here? send us an email and we’ll do our best to address it!

if you’re ready to step into your own #bosswitch boots and create your dream life with confidence, join me in the creative coven online design course! this self-paced program will take you from casting on and writing your first pattern to running a long-term sustainable and supportive creative biz with knitwear design. with pre-recorded videos that you can return to whenever you need, to 24/7 access to my favourite tools and resources for running your online biz, you’ll be able to take the pattern ideas in your head and put them out into the world AND make money while you do it. check it out here.

if you’re not sure if you’ve got the creative confidence yet, try out the creative coven challenge in the creative coven community to see just how many ideas are waiting to pour out of you. we’ll be running a LIVE version of the creative coven challenge from february 21-25 - join us here and get my direct feedback to help you on your creative way!

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