A few weeks back, I noticed a seller on an online selling venue selling PDFs of patterns that looked REALLY familiar. Since they had requested to join a team I manage, I thought I would be nice and caution her against this. Lawyers are hungry people (apparently Disney's lawyers have a particularly voracious appetite for copyright and trademark infringers! but I digress) and who wants an official letter telling them in legalese that what they're doing is stealing?
After a week or so, the patterns were still up. So...YES, I DID contact the magazine that published them. I had a brief reply thanking me and mentioning this had been passed on to their lawyers. The patterns were removed, so I assumed the magazine or its lawyers contacted the seller.
BUT, a few weeks later, BAM! The patterns were put right back up in the seller's shop.
I contacted the magazine again, via the person who replied to my first message, and got an answer today...this has been passed on (again) to their lawyers, AND the selling venue has been contacted, so there's a possibility this shop will be shut down.
I mean, honestly...what HONEST person ignores a friendly word of advice and prefers to wait to see if they're busted by the legal owner? Of course, most honest people KNOW you cannot sell scans of someone else's work legally, or even morally.
Now, 'who wants an official letter telling them in legalese that what they're doing is stealing?' The same person who admits she doesn't know *who* designed the patterns, they were in her collection and she wanted to 'share' at 'bargain' prices. I have a feeling if her shop is shut down, she is such a generous, sharing person (with other people's goods anyway) that she'll merely open up under another name.
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