Thursday, October 01, 2015

Ranty Venting, feel free to ignore

So a while back I joined a Facebook group for stitchers to buy/sell/trade stash.  It was fun, I bought a few things, and I was always amazed at how quickly things were sold!
Last night I finally put together a pile of my things to sell.  There were a little more than a dozen patterns, nothing that (I thought) was terribly rare or interesting, so I priced them all relatively cheaply and crossed my fingers.  Well, in less than 5 minutes almost half of it was claimed!  I was excited.
This morning I had a message in my inbox accusing me of copyright violation, for posting a pattern that had no picture.  It was an older Cedar Hill pattern, and it was originally sold as a card with no picture.  When I photographed it, I had blurred the symbols a bit with my photo editor, but not so much that you couldn't tell what the design WAS.  The floss key was on the back, so that wasn't visible either.  I tried to point this out to the girl who complained, but she immediately banned and blocked me from the group.  I had things that people wanted to buy, and no way to contact them.  I was beyond annoyed, especially because I don't think I did anything wrong - in fact, I went out of my way to make sure that I would NOT do the very thing the admins were accusing me of!  Finally one of the admins sent me a list of who wanted to buy what, and while I'm glad for this, it also strikes me as odd....I mean, if you think I am a copyright violator and all-around bad person, why would you give me the means to get money from your other group members?  I mean, I could get their money via PayPal and disappear!  (For the record, NO, I wouldn't do that.)
I know I shouldn't be surprised by the level of stupid in the world, or by the evil joy some people take in abusing their "power" (however meaningless the power of a Facebook group admin may really be, I suppose if it is all you have you can get carried away).  I'm just so hurt to be accused of a COPYRIGHT crime, of all the ridiculous things.  Sigh.

4 comments:

Kate said...

So sorry this has happened to you. In my opinion it could have been handled alot better had a little tact been used, instead of flying accusations and banning. What people who are so fiery against copyright violation need to realise is they themselves represent the idea, so how they represent it is crucial- it's like the police- you cannot attack somebody simply because you suspect something, the goal is to protect copyright by encouraging people to do the same. Otherwise you just tear the idea down and the purpose is defeated- people who are protecting it are treated no differently than those who violate it.
I am an admin, not of that group, and do try to protect this same issue, however in my experience it's always better to help someone become part of the solution rather than tear them into becoming a bigger problem or hurting innocents. So sorry it's happened, but you must hold your head up high knowing you were in the right and protecting copyrights, and dont be discouraged that someone else has to trip over thier ego. That is thier issue and not yours to carry, and Im sure designers everywhere are grateful you took the effort to try. Hugs

Stitchhappy said...

I am so sorry to hear that you had such a hurtful thing happen! I know copyright violation is a serious concern and I understand that those rights need protection but people on social media frequently cross the line in condemning others for supposed violations on so many things. People have become cyberbullies and feel they are free to say and do whatever they want because they can hide behind the anonymity of the internet. I appreciate the efforts you took to protect the designer's copyright - many people don't try. Chin up! Don't let such a mean-spirited person ruin your day.

KimM said...

I'm so sorry to hear this happened to you. I'd be very hurt and upset, as well if it were me. Take care - chin up - your heart was and IS in the right place
xxx

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience. A simple request not to show parts of the chart would have been sufficient. Plus, why would you show a photo of chart you were trying to sell? Doesn't make sense, "I want money for this chart so here is a nice clear photo so you can just download it". Obviously you're going to blur it and make it useless. Which is what you did. Silly people.

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