Forum - Other - Questions re copyright. | BraceletBook

Questions re copyright.

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Blue_Skys Bracelet King	4 years, 4 months ago by Blue_Skys Hi all (but especially to the Mods) I wonder if you can help answer a question for me. I’ve noticed YouTube has started cracking down on copyright infringement in many of the crafting channels over there (for me it’s most noticeable on the diamond painting channels I follow but at least one bracelet making channel has been targeted that I know about) and I’m wondering what the copyright is on bracelet designs on/from sites like BraceletBook? I mean if I create a variation on a design (changes in colours for example) do I then own the copyright on that particular variation or does the person who created the original design own the copyright on both the original and all the variations because it’s the design itself that copyrighted, not the variations/colours? Or does BraceletBook own the copyright on all the designs and variations submitted to the site and therefore anyone can use them on, say, a blog or YouTube channel or sell the bracelets they’ve made from designs on here (as I’ve also seen asked about in the forums here) with no repercussions? Looking at the Terms if Use it is very confusing, as one part cites “You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software or pictures from this site without permission.” Yet we are creating variations on the same patterns (which are accepted by the site) and, by its very nature this is a site to create derivative works from or are we supposed to just look at the pretty patterns and not make any of them ourselves unless we are the creatorsof the original patterns (in which case I can think of at least two Mods on here who may need to be aware of what they are doing tutorials of and posting on their YouTube channels in future - which is definitely NOT meant as a call out in a bitchy way but as a heads-up as I follow both of them on YouTube and here and love their tutorials etc and don’t want them to get into any trouble)? Another part of the TOU cites “Only the creators of patterns, photos, videos and tutorials are allowed to add them.” Yet everyone else is able to add variations on a pattern not created by them and this is not only allowed, but actively encouraged by the Mods on the site, so this part of the TOU may need to be reworded to reflect this as at the moment the implication is that only the creator of the original pattern is allowed to make variations on that pattern. Also “Any user content (material uploaded by users such as patterns, photos etc) belongs to the respective user. The original creator of the content has the copyright on it.” So the variations I create of someone else’s pattern and which are accepted and displayed on the site and the app are copyrighted to me then? Sorry if this is long winded - and I hope it’s not too complicated/confusing to understand what I’m trying to ask - but any advice/clarification on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Margaron Moderator	4 years, 4 months ago by Margaron @Admin would probably be best suited to answer this question.
Margaron Moderator	4 years, 4 months ago by Margaron I think after reading over your post a couple of times there may be some valid wording confusion in the Terms of Use. Admin feel free to correct me here but I think the ‘modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, licence [... etc]’ statement is more with regards to the coding and design of the website. As in you cannot steal, for instance, the code for our bracelet generator to create your own and then say it is yours. You cannot create a website that looks identical to BraceletBook but is not BraceletBook. You cannot take the BraceletBook logo, or steal graphics from the website.

Margaron Moderator	4 years, 4 months ago by Margaron The ‘only creators of patterns, photos, videos and tutorials [...]’ is in reference to literal copying. People will find old patterns and submit them as a new pattern to the website and claim them as their own, colours and all whereas a variation links back to the original pattern and creator. People have also tried to submit photos off of Instagram etc as their own and the legitimate users have contacted us to have them removed. The same as YouTube tutorial content, users have submitted videos belonging to others in the past and when that user goes to upload them their videos are already here and uploaded by another user.
Margaron Moderator	4 years, 4 months ago by Margaron So far as variations go I honestly am not sure how that is handled but may literally fall under Creative Commons? Kind of like fan fiction? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t know how the copyright on variations is claimed. But I think by submitting a pattern to the website you are accepting that other creators may create variations of your pattern and therefore they have copyright to their variation? 🤔 But the rest of that statement is clear- your photos are your photos, your videos are your videos, submitting them to BraceletBook does not make that content copyright of BraceletBook if you request a photo, video etc. to be removed we will remove it.
Admin Administrator	4 years, 4 months ago by Admin Good questions, and thank you @Margaron for replying. For the variations, when you create one from an existing pattern, you basically only change the colors of it, the knot structure of it is not your creation, and therefore I don't see any reason why you would gain the copyrights to the pattern. They should still belong to the original creator of the pattern to which every variation is linked (so it's easy to find). BraceletBook doesn't own the copyrights in this case, it's the authors of the patterns who own them. The TOU part you mention is also connected to the content users submit to the site. But when you create a variation, you're not distributing it in any way, the one you create will still be only published to BB, which is totally fine. Remember that sharing a pattern on BraceletBook implies that users are able to create variations out of it. The problem would be if you'd take patterns from the site, and distribute them (original or modified) to some other website, if you're not the author of the patterns. You can use all the patterns for your personal use without any issues. It's the purpose of the website to allow people sharing patterns with other users. And it would be really weird if someone shared a pattern on here, and then would start complaining that someone makes a bracelet out of it for their own use. But using the patterns commercially, and/or to create content is definitely not something that the authors of the patterns would expect. If you'd like to do that, you should definitely ask the author for a permission to do it. I agree that we should reword some sections of the TOU to be cleaner, though 🙂.
Blue_Skys Bracelet King	4 years, 4 months ago by Blue_Skys Hi @Margaron and @Admin Thank you both very much for your replies and for helping me out here. I appreciate it.
Blue_Skys Bracelet King	4 years, 4 months ago by Blue_Skys I’d like to be able to create my own but when I’ve tried the system tells me it’s too close to a pattern already on the system (although that could be because I prefer the Normal patterns rather than the Alpha’s so there’s less designs that can be done with the Normal’s and the patterns are harder for me to get the hang of) but I’ll carry on working on it and see what I can come up with in future 😊. Thank you both very much again.

Admin Administrator	4 years, 4 months ago by Admin No problem @Blue_Skys, you're welcome! I'm happy to hear it helped 🙂. And yes, our system detects variations automatically, and so if you accidentally create a pattern that is already in our database, it says you can add it as a variation. I'm sure that after some time you will manage to create a new normal pattern which is not yet in our database 🙂. I wish you good luck!
Blue_Skys Bracelet King	4 years, 4 months ago by Blue_Skys Thank you very much 🙂. I think part of the reason I’m having problems is that the Alpha pattern creation version has the option to upload a photo of the design you want to make whilst the Normal pattern creation version doesn’t. So you have to use a preexisting bracelet template to create a new design but this a) can’t be edited easily and b) then seems to mark the design as a variation automatically rather than recognising it as a new design.
Blue_Skys Bracelet King	4 years, 4 months ago by Blue_Skys Do you know of any plans to bring the “Draw Alpha” “Write Alpha” “Alpha from image” “Alpha from Font” options into the Normal bracelet making design module?

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