Knitting in the Shadows

Social Commentary via Plagiarized Post

This post is rampant plagiarism.  I've only a vague idea where the original came from (and no confidence whatsoever that that idea has any basis in reality).  But I just "needed" to share it.  I plucked from an email list I enjoy.

 

An Obituary printed in the London Times - Interesting and sadly rather true

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned, but overbearing, regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now,  Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Ugly Wake Up Calls (plural)

A couple of months so ago, I took on what seemed like a not-very-difficult challenge - I was going to knit a modest sized shawl for a friend of mine by March 7.  When I first started it, we'd discussed a shawl that just sort of covered the top of her arms.  As long as it was big enough to get around her shoulders, she was good with it.

I figured we were aiming at, oh, 45 - 50 inches wide or so (a standard size).  And, as it turns out, the shawl she chose was, originally, about that size.  That I could do in plenty of time.  But, of course, she hadn't exactly said.

Over time, that estimate morphed a bit. 

I kept asking "no really.... how many inches are you looking for?" And I kept knitting...

It was hard to figure for sure, since she didn't have anything that actually worked, even to fake it, to compare it to. And ya know -- grabbing a tape measure and wrapping it around your shoulders doesn't actually give you much information about how a shawl will fit.  Eventually, she found something that was just the size she wanted.. and it even worked for the March date....it was about .. 60" give or take. (I confess, I slowed down a bit then, because that gave me an extra month to finish).

As it turns out, that "small shawl" needs to be more like 69".  Oh well.  I've got plenty of yarn, so the only question is time. But I did want to finish reasonably quickly.

I thought I was getting close.  I really did. (Well, close to the 60" goal anyway.)  I thought I'd gotten close enough to start the top border pattern.  I even went so far as to start it.

cough.

I can't even pretend that the problem was that I was on target for 60 but not 69....

Ugly wake up the first:  the shawl was, in fact, at only 45 inches wide. I discovered this crisis, pulled the puppy off the needles, and confirmed that by measuring as though blocking. 

Wile the border adds a few inches, it does not add 24 inches to the width.  Sigh.  I frogged back the four rows I'd done that commited me to the top border, having failed to take picutres while it was all spread out and starting to look like, you know, lace.

Of course, there was no life-line involved.  So, while I was trying to get the stitches back on the needles, the lovely slippery yummy fine yarn slithered around trying to drop stitches.  It took me long enough to finish a full repeat to get it all back on the needles correctly.

I need to do a serious push on this shawl. (Time to stop designing stuff and just KNIT this thing -- she'll be back in town by the end of the week!)

The there's other ugly wake up call. ... not quite as easy to get past.

We have defective shingles on our roof. That means that for the past ten years they've been flying off in every serious storm, and every so often we've had a small leak.  Now we've got more leaks ... only this time we can't fix it by patching the roof.  Evidently, the defective shawls have failed to the part where ... well... we have to get a new roof.

We can't go to the company who made our defective shingles to honor their original thirty-year warranty, because, well, they went out of business. (I wonder why).

Sigh.

So... A new roof.  (Can I change colors??) Theres a time honored tradition of putting a new roof on top of the old roof until you've got, oh, three layers up there. (That may or may not make changing colors more challenging).  The roof on our house is it's first (as it should be, the house is only 15 years old).  Ordinarily, in line with that there time-honored tradition; we'd be slapping new shingles up on our roof.  Alas, that time honored tradition is not one we get to follow.  We're special you see, ... our shingles are defective. That means that they're also warped.  In order to put one roof on top of another roof, the existing roof needs to be flat.  Warped shingles do not leave a flat roof.

Ugly wake up number two: not only do we have to get a new roof, we have to have a tear off (they rip the old roof completely off ... down to the plywood (which we're really hoping is till good), and start over pretty much from scratch.  (At least that makes it easier to change the color.)

 

 

 

 

 

Love Affair with Judy's Magic..

Several years ago, I went to a wonderful (wonderful) workshop with Cat Bordhi.  Among the things I learned there was a cast on unvented by the delightufl Judy Becker (who was a "classmate" of mine there, how cool is that).  {For those non-knitters among you, a cast on is the way one gets stitches on a needle.  You're more than welcome to stay, but this post is really gonna be knit-geeky, and you might just want to bail now and wait until I do something different (I may, for example, do a little dance on contingent fees in personal injury suits}

So, this cast on, now rather popular, is called Judy's Magic Cast On.  You can find all sorts of tutorials for it on You Tube, but I find it particularly delightful that one of them is done by Cat Bordhi.

So... where was I? Oh yes, talking about this glorious cast on.  I'm fond of it, to be sure.  And any time I need a provisional cast on, I gravitate directly to that one.  (I wonder if I even remember the other ways -- besides the old stand by using scrap yarn and a crochet hook). 

Oh, lookie, we've got a newbie or non-knitter still with us.... I hear a soft voice murmering "What in blazes is a provisional cast on?? Is that something you put where you're not sure you really wanted to cast on??" 

Well, not quite.   A provisional cast on is one that, instead of leaving a nice edge (firm or stretchy, depending) on one side, and a bunch of live stitches on the needle on the other, like this:

 

(well, okay, that's a cast on edge, with a bunch of beads, and on row knit.  But you can see the edge and the live stitches, right?)

leaves live stitches on both sides! (like this:)

This is right after the cast on.  Here's what happens after you've knit one row:

And here's where you are after knitting two rows:

That means that you can then knit in both directions away from the cast on.  This can be very useful...... say, in scarves with lace or textured patterns that are visually very different when upside down; you can caston provisionally, knit one side, bind off, go back to the live stitches that are still up there, and knit the other side -- which will be the first side's identical twin as it lays on your coat collar.

As I said.  I've known for a long time that I think provisional cast ons are nifty as all get out.  But today I realized just how far gone I am.  I'm working on this sweater design.  It starts in the center back, so ... obviously... I used Judy's Magic Cast On.  As I'm going along side to side, I increased at the neckline until.... voila ... it dawns on me that I can avoid shoulder seams if I just cast on more for the front piece.  For some sweaters, you really do WANT shoulder seams.  But I think that this one might actually benefit from their absence.  Besides, I can always go back and do a magic shoulder stabilizer thing if I'm wrong.

Now, if I just cast on to bring stitches over the shoulder, I'd have a nice clean EDGE.  That woudl be nice if said edge would wind up where I want the center edge of the cardigan to be.. but of course, I'm no longer at the center of the sweater, having knit one side of the neck.  That means... you guessed it, I'll need to knit in both directions from that point if the thing will be other than a kimono with no hope of ever being buttoned.  Since my client bought a very cool button so that she could button the sweater, I'm thinking I'll need to do that bi-directional knitting thing.  And so, I've provisionally cast on again.  I'll be adding at least one more provisional cast on before it's over.   Heck, it's entirely possible that they'll all be in play before I bind off a thing.  Here's the latest one, a couple of rows in.

But my favorite part about Judy's Magic Cast On?  It's the only one I've heard of that leaves a purl bump between the cast on edges... so once it's in play, you really can't find the place you started.

 

And the designing continues..

I've been comissioned to design and knit a sweater.  My client has this sweater that she bought in one of those discount stores where the sweaters are, like, $9.00.  She found it, fell in love with the way it fits, and now... can't find anything like it again.

So, she's asked me to take the sweater, and figure out what makes it fit the way she likes, and make her a new sweater.  As it turns out, mostly it's just that the sweater is just the right length, and it's just snug enough.  So, I'll be working with a similar shape, but changing some other stuff... and hope that it all means I make something lovely.

So, we went to the yarn store together, and had a lovely time while she discovered just what a real yarn store is, and just what real yarn is like.  I introduced her to new-to-her fibers. And then we sat on the floor with little piles of yarn until she chose just what she wanted.

What started as a simple sweater ended up with five different yarns in it!  Here it is with four of them in play...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know... those pale stripes look a bit odd so far, but I'm hoping that my plan, in which they appear at a fairly regular interval, will work and look all intentional and stuff.  The yarn in those strips will be in the collar and cuffs later.  And really -- the colors don't quite look that way; I tried with flash, without flash... tomorrow, I'll try daylight.

Notice I didn't say sunlight?  That's because, despite a glorious day on the Equinox (sun, 70 degrees, and a new pump for the pond, so the waterfall is back on), today grew steadily drearier, and then rained, and we're due for more rain and more cold tomorrow.

So... for a while, you'll get to see some unusual colors for this blog.  That's what happens when you knit for other people using the colors they like instead of the colors I like.

And, I'll be alternating this, with the tail end of the Fairy Stars (yep, still knitting that, but I'm in the top border now).

On the benefits of designing gauntlets.

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm designing a pair of lace fingerless gauntlets for Kitty.  She had some pretty stringent specs for them:

1) Long -- Fingerless GAUNTLETS, not Fingerless Mitts.  To the elbow. She'd likely have been happy had I made them go past her elbow, but I didn't to deal with the potential challenges of the elbow.

2) Lace -- but not too lacy.  She's not known for being gentle on things.

3) No wool -- because even though she wanted them long long long -- her hands get really hot.

And I've done it. She says it's perfect. (Phew -- knitting for teenagers is risky.)

While I now have a great plan for gauntlets (or wrist warmers for that matter) that catch the thumb without covering the palm, I also have a completed gauntlet pattern for more standard gauntlets.  I've also got a completed gauntlet to which I made some adjustments to reduce the palm coverage. 

And now... I get to do the first teal test of my pattern myself!  That's the benefit of designing things that come in pairs.  To finish making sure that the design works for both hands, (and to finish the pair for Kitty), I have to/get to test the pattern in a way I don't really get to test other things.

There's a reason I don't test knit very often.  I tend to "fix" mistakes as I knit.  And when I'm knitting my own patterns, I tend to do what I know what's supposed to happen, whether or not I actually wrote it down that way. (That makes me a truly horrid test knitter for my own patterns).  But, when I'm trying to figure out what ways the left one is going to work out differently from the right -- well... I have less tendency to just do what I know is there, and am more likely to really see what I wrote.

Soon, I hope, I'll be sending this pattern off to real testers.

 

I made a knitter!

Some days, it's the little things that make it worthwhile.

This mornign, I discovered that some wonderful person bought three of my patterns at once on Ravelry.  Makes my day.

And I took my glee out into the world, and gathered with a couple of friends (one of whom taught me to ice a cake two weeks ago).  Today was my turn to teach -- and I taught one person to knit and purl back (backwards, ya know).  But more importantly, I taught another to knit at all. 

We tried "picking" first (in which one holds the yarn in one's left hand) since she is left handed, and often using the dominant hand as the one that does the most stuff is easier.  That was okay, but she felt much more comfortable when we tried "throwing".  I left her having worked several rows of garter stitch, with happy plans to practice more until I see her next.

Tee hee! I made a knitter! (sort of).

Makes my day.

Modern Technology trumps pen and paper again.

Maths .....

Stupid simple maths (addition, subtraction, simple multiplication) were beating me to death.

I came so close to caving.

I even cried uncle on an email list -- and Ravelry

I almost posted here to ask if there was anyone out there who would have been willing to help me get the damned numbers right (so that I'm really having folks cast on the right number of sitches, and so that I'm really telling them the right numbers for how many repeats of things to knit, and how many stitches they should have at the end of each section).

But then, I remembered that I have a computer.  And ya know what?  It has a spreadsheet program!

It's so cool!  You can plug in known numbers, and it can figure out the unknowns that you need to know!  And... once you figure out how to calculate that number once, you can tell it how, and it'll do it over and over for different knowns -- practically automatically!

Turns out, I'm more competent at setting up the spreadsheets than I was at calculating using pen, paper and that other magic tool my computer has (which they call, are you ready? a calculator).

 

It means that I gave my wonderful glorious pattern testers the RIGHT numbers for the first oh, third... of the pattern so far.  But, the magic tool showed me that I need to rechart something for the triangular derivation.  I refuse to give instructions that say "(k1, bead1, k5, bead1)  11 1/2 times.......

Meanwhile, I sketched out five design ideas last night.  Yes, they're all sort of derivations of each other, but starting with a single premise, I've got pretty different looks none-the-less.

This all means that I've not been spending as much time as I ought to have done cleaning my house.  Alas, I've a deadling coming up.  Tuesday.

Tuesday, we're hosting a small, informal, informational - non-fundraising- meeting for the local Anti Rape Center.  It's only a year and a half old in its current formation, and we're trying to get more people in the community aware of what all it does.  It's a whole lot more than running the Rape Crisis Hotline (which, btw, the volunteers do very very well).  I'm on the board, so I get to host one of these shindigs.

But that means that people I don't know will be in my house!  And that triggers something my mother bred deeply into me -- any part of the house that these people see has to be spotless.  Sometimes, I wish I could let go of that.

.... Why did it have to be Maths??

Maths, why did it have to be maths?  Maths are so much worse than snakes you know.

I actually like snakes.

But here I am, doing maths. Again.

Because evidently, I can't count to 1057.

And once I've got my 1057 (even if I call it 1058, and am then persuaded that it's really 1059...), I seem to have been unable to wrap my brain around the fact that if you have a left side thing that starts with 18 stitches, followed by a bunch of repeats of section that starts with 17 stitches followed by a right side thing that has, well, um, 17 stitches ....

there aren't actually 66 repeats of the middle part,

there are only 64 repeats of that part.

see, basic maths:

17 + (66 * 17) + 17 does not equal 1057.  Not even on a really good day.

And then, if you decrease a bunch in each repeat, you really won't have enough for 66 repeats of anything at the end of the chart... even if you count those outside two things as a repeat (which you shouldn't). You will, in fact, have only enough for um, something like  62 repeats (plus some outside things.) 

Maths.

And this, my friends, is basic maths.  Not quite second grader material, it does after all use three digit numbers and multiplication.  But still.  Maths.

I'd rather play with snakes.

I'm hoping that, having seen the light on this one, I will do a better job with the next bit of maths. (Note to self: the number of repeats really is likely to go down with every single chart -- you're decreasing your way to the top).

In the mean time, I'd like your help.

I've got these charts -- what feels like thousands of them right now, but really not so many.

I have two questions about them:

1) when a pattern has a right side, a center section, and a left side, would you rather have one really wide chart (that therefore can't use a large "font" or it wouldn't fit on the page, even sideways)?  Or would you prefer three charts with a larger font?

2) when a section sort of splits part way through, so that you work a right side, many repeats, and then the left side for, say 15 rows... but then splits so that you work a right edge, several repeats, a central decrease, several repeats, and then a left edge, would you rather have one chart that looks like there are two different repeated sections throughout, so that the placement of the split is really easy to see? Or would you rather have two charts -- one with the part before the split (which thus shows only one repeated section) and one at and after the split?  Does it make a difference if the chart is otherwise small enough that font isn't going to be an issue?

 

 

 

 

Firestorms over not very much - part IV (A bit more on the DCMA and an insult)

We left the DCMA discussion at the point where a TakeDown notice has been sent to an ISP.

So, what happens next?

Normally, this happens after the "subscriber" has already posted the allegedly infringing material on the website (as in Wanda Wannabe's just-plain-stolen design and poor Olivia Originality's truly-new design both posted on Webhost X).  That is, after all, what the statute says -- the complaining party has to provide "information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material."   If the stuff hasn't been posted, how can we identify where to find it?

And in the normal case, the ISP (Webhost X) takes the allegedly offending material down (or block access to it).  They do this as quickly as ever they can to prevent any additional harm coming to the infringed upon person (well, okay, and also because if they dawdle, the infringed upon person might have an argument that since the Webhost folks KNEW that the material was infringing, every day that they left it up was causing preventable harm to the copyright holder, and thus, sh/e could sue the ISP (Webhost).  If the delay was long enough, the courts will buy that argument and the ISP would have to pay some judgment or other.)

So, Dora sends a takedown notice to Webhost X, claiming that Olivia's pattern infringes on her copyrights.  If she does it right, Webhost takes the pattern down, and tells Olivia about the notice.

If she's savvy, Olivia Originality, who has not infringed on anyone's copyrights, will then file a Reverse Take Down notice with- Webhost X.  For it to work, it has to say several very specific things, and provide specific information.  Like the takedown notice, it has to include a digital or physical signature, and it has to identify the material that "has been removed or to which access has been disabled" and  it has to identify the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access disabled.  It must include the subscriber's name (Olivia Originality in this case), address and telephone number, and a statement  that "the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled."  The subscriber also has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal District court for the judicial district in which the address is located, and also has to agree to accept service of process from the person who provided the original notification.

Ooh, legal gobbledy gook. Let's see if we can parse that into plain English. 

The first part is easy. (/s Olivia Originality). The second part is easy if you've actually posted the stuff ; for Olivia, it would be the url of the link to her pattern (or the link through which to buy it).  Name, address, phone number, no problem.  But that good faith belief thing? What's that?

Well, a good faith belief is one that is supported by some evidence or reasonable understanding - but not much.  Whether or not I believe in, say, live garden gnomes, and I believe that garden gnomes are stealing the fish from my neighbor's pond, it's unlikely that a court would find I had a "good faith belief" that a garden gnome stole the fish I was accused of stealing unless I could offer some evidence that it was a garden gnome and not some other creature with which the court was more familiar (say, my child, or my cat).  On the other hand, if I had a picture of a garden gnome running across the lawn with a goldfish in it's arms, that would be more than enough to form such a belief, even I didn't bother to check whether the picture had been altered.  Likewise, seeing several people come in front outside dripping wet  is enough to give me a good faith belief that it's raining with some vigor.

Olivia likely has a good faith belief that her design doesn't infringe on Dora Designer's pattern if Olivia drew up the charts herself without looking at other charts, or picked up her needles and knit without looking at any pattern and then wrote down what she did.

It troubles me a little that the text of the law is that it doesn't say that the subscriber gets to say "hey, that doesn't infringe on his copyright".  The subscriber can only say that there was a "mistake", or that the material was "misidentified". But what on earth does it mean to say that the "material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or mis-identification of the material to be removed or disabled."?  That's a little hard for me, and I'm trained in reading statutes. I did try to find a federal court opinion to explain it, but don't have access to the really good opinion searching tools, and came up empty handed.

While it sounds like it means that the subscriber has to tell the ISP that it made a mistake, it's really referring to a mistake that the complaining person made.   I'm not sure whether that means that the complaining person made a mistake and identified the wrong material as infringing, or that it means that the complaining person was mistaken about whether the material infringed his/her copyright.

Either way, if Dora Designer saw the pattern that Wanda swiped and posted under the name Sunbeams and Starlight, but tells Webhost X that the offending pattern is Olivia Originality's Moonbeams and Starlight pattern... she has mistakenly mis-identified the infringing material.  Likewise, if she heard some story that Olivia's pattern was copied from hers, even though it wasn't, if she tells Webhost X that the pattern infringes on her copyright, she'll have mistakenly mis-identified the pattern as infringing. This is badly phrased, but presumably it works.

Then there's that bit where if Person B/the subscriber (Wanda Wannabe, or Olivia Originality from my examples)(or me from my life) wants to resist this mess, and ask/demand that our ISP (Webhost X in the examples, or Ravelry) to put the pattern back up, we have to agree to go play in Federal Court!

Worse yet, if you're playing with Ravelry, what they say about that differs from what the law says.  The law provides that the subscriber has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court for the district in which the subscriber lives, but if (and only if ) the subscriber's address is outside of the United States, the subscriber must then agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court in the district in which the service provider may be found. Ravelry, however, says that to send a counter notice to them, the subscriber has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court where Ravelry is -- with no option identified for submitting to the Federal Court near the Subscriber.  That's a big difference. It's a good thousand miles for me... but for folks on the left-coast ... well.... ahem

So, given that last tidbit, unless Wanda Wannabe, who stole Dora Designer's pattern and posted it on Webhost X, is a glutton for punishment, she probably sighs at having been caught, and lets Webhost take the pattern down.  That, I think, is what the designer in my case was hoping I'd do.  After all, who wants to go to Federal Court if you didn't really design the pattern?  You'll have to hire a lawyer, possibly travel, and pay for all of the other expenses of litigation.

Olivia, on the other hand, who did design something original, would  likely file a counter takedown notice with Webhost X.  Thus, our old friend Webhost X would have dueling takedown notices on their lawyer's desk (I wish I had Franklin's mad skilz here.  I can totally picture one of his cartoons with the notices using straight needles to duel over a pattern).  Now what?

Now, the ISP (Webhost X) informs the complaining person (Dora Designer) that the subscriber has filed a counter takedown notice.  After that, if the complaining person doesn't file suit in Federal Court (in the district that the subscriber has already agreed has jurisdiction), the ISP has to put the material back up (or restore access to it) within 10-14 business days.

In my case, things are going to be a little bit different.

Ravelry's lawyer has "apprised me" that he's received a "valid" takedown notice. Personally, I don't quite get how he could give Ravelry a valid take down notice without the information on where Ravelry could find the material he was alleging infringed on his copyright.  And there's no way the designer could  have provided that information, because the material in question is not located anywhere on Ravelry's site. In fact, as far as I know, it's not located on any website (unless one of my testers gets her emial via webmail).

Yep.  I've received notice a DCMA TakeDown notice from Ravelry's lawyer, who claims that the notice is valid, but I haven't actually posted the allegedly infringing pattern anywhere.  (Okay, the designer who is stirring up this silliness seems to think that by sending the pattern to my testers, I've posted his pattern to the universe - but since I did not use Raverly to send those pdfs to anyone, Ravelry has no business getting involved with that). Nonetheless, Ravelry's lawyer has promised/threatened that if I have the audacity to post my patterns, Ravelry will take them right down again. 

This whole takedown thing pretty much sucks for anyone who is falsely, or inaccurately accused.  Luckily, the DMCA does have one provision intended to protect folks like me from malicious filing of takedown notices. Title 17, Chapter 5, § 512 of the U.S. Code provides that if someone knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing (in other words, knows (or has a really good reason to believe) that something isn't actually infringing on his/her copyright, but reports that it is, using a DMCA takedown notice to get an ISP to remove or block that thing), that person will be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys fees, that the falsely accused may incur as a result of the takedown.

 

Even though I dispute the validity of this particular takedown notice, I replied to Ravelry's lawyer by providing my  Counter Takedown Notice, and explaining why I am confident that my design does not infringe on anyone's copyright at all. (yep, that's me... giving more than necessary - and if anyone asks, I'll subject you all to that thorough analysis, with lots of links to other patterns, and maybe even a picture or two). 

I had assumed that if a designer could pre-emptively file a take-down notice, before I'd even posted my pattern, I could pre-emptively respond, so that we could clear things up before my testers were done. Silly me.

Here's what the lawyer sent in reply:

"since the alleged infringing pattern has yet to be published, there is nothing for me to remove under the DMCA.  When you publish the pattern(s), I will be required to remove the patterns pursuant to the DMCA guidelines.  You will then have a time period in which to respond with a counter takedown notice.  You must ensure you 100% comply with the requirements under the DMCA for a valid counter takedown notice.

"Ravelry will not be the arbitrar of this dispute but will simply follow the guidelines as set forth in the DMCA.

"My suggestion is you read the Ravelry terms of use or the DMCA if you require further information."

so... evidently, I have to follow the exact letter of the law, but he doesn't?

Whatever.

Meanwhile, I got another message from the designer in which he told me that he's handed the whole thing over to Ravelry's lawyer (who, as I recall, represents Ravelry, not the designers who play there).  He also told me, without meaning to be "harsh", that  I don't have the creativity or imagination to design "a sophisticated lace shawl", and went on to give disparaging review of the designs that I have for sale on Ravlery.  While I admit that some of his designs do qualify as sophisticated lace shawls, I can't say that about the pattern he's whining about. 

Oddly enough, I'm not inspired to respond to him further.  I'll just wait to see what happens when my wonderful test knitters have finished their shawls and, having had their invaluable help in eradicating at least most of the errors that inevitably creep into a pattern with this much going on, I release the pattern.

Instead, I'm working on a design for a pair of Gauntlets for Kitty.  I'm almost done - writing up how I do the thumb split is always hard, 'cause I tend to do a bunch of fiddly stuff.

Firestorms over not very much - part III (an introduction to the DCMA)

So, Monday night, I sent off my well reasoned, complimentary, thorough response to the fellow who is trying to claim that my pattern design (sitll with testers) infringed upon his copyright.

I then opened the next messge from him in which he says that since he knew I'd been active on Ravelry, but hadn't yet bothered to respond to him, he was withdrawing his "offer to compromise" and was reporting me to Ravelry.  (As you may recall his offers to compromise have been 1) to tell me that if I withdrew my pattern from my testers immediately, he'd keep our conversation private, and 2) to tell me that if I changed what amounts to 1/3 of my design from something that has been used in dozens of other designs, it might be enough to get him to admit that my design is original.)

I responded, at 8:20 p.m., saying, essentially, that I realized that this issue is important to him, but that I do have other obligations (children to take care of, for example).  I explained to him that I had assumed that he didn't really want an off the cuff response to his prior message, and that in addition to meeting my other obligations, I'd taken the time to alert my testers, fix that one chart for him, and draft a considered response to his message.

I pointed out that since  I had already alerted my test knitters to his concerns, it seemed to me that "unless and until I send my pattern to anyone else, no further harm is happening, so we have time to discuss the issue rationally. Rushing things won’t improve the results."  I also pointed out that there isn't really a way that I can force my test knitters to delete the pdfs I'd sent to them from their computers.

Anf finally, I mentioned that though he talked about compromise, he hadn't actually offered one of his own.  I then slipped and got a bit snippy, saying "Your acceleration of this problem at this rate assumes that the only thing I have to do is respond to you. It’s neither reasonable, nor evidence of any desire to resolve this dispute in a civil manner. I’ve compromised already, seems like it’s your turn." 

While ordinarily, I'd regret that last bit ... it turns out that I don't need to worry about having short circuited our negotiations.

As soon as I'd sent the message to the designer via Ravelry, I received an email from Ravelry's legal counsel, informing me that he had received "a valid takedown notice as required under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act ("DMCA") alleging that several patterns you intend to release, [snip], infringe upon the copyright of another Ravelry user.  Please be advised, that in the event you post these patterns on Ravelry, whether for sale or not, I will required to remove the pattern pursuant to the DMCA."

What the heck is the DCMA? you might ask? 

I sure did.  So I looked it up. 

The DCMA is a Federal Law that sprung out of an international treaty negotiated during the Clinton Administration.  Its purpose is to prevent folks from stealing software, videos, music etc. (you know, things that get sent around on the internet or through digital media), and to provide a safe harbor for the companies that make internet service possibe in the first place.  A big chunk of it is involved with things like those DRM features on DVDs and Kindle downloads that prevent you from copying them.  It's more about finding ways to prevent people from spreading copywritten stuff throughout the internet than it is about copyright violations, and the  provisions that are relevant  to the notice I received are the ones that protect internet service providers and web hosts from being sued when people who use their services post things that infringe others' copyrights. (And why is it copyright, copyrights, but copywritten?).

Why exactly do we want to protect the ISPs?

Well... lets assume for the sake of argument that Wilma Wannabe desides that she wants to sell patterns, but can't design her way out of a wet paper sack.  She buys one of Dora Designer's best patterns, takes it home, and types the instructions and charts etc into her own publishing software.  She then posts that pattern for sale on Ravelry and Patternfish and sells it on Etsy.

Technically, Ravelry, Patternfish and Etsy are all infringing Dora Designer's copyright when they send copies of Wanda's pattern out -- since Wanda's pattern is acatually Dora's pattern.  We don't really want Dora to sue Raverly, Patternfish and Etsy, but we do want them to stop selling Wanda's version of the pattern.  If we let Dora and every other copy right holder whose stuff gets put up on these sites sue the webhosts, sooner or later the legal fees and judgment awards will cause them to go under.  And really, how are they supposed to know that Wanda's design isn't her own unless they have someone pore over every design that gets put up to make sure it doesn't match any other design?

So, that's why we want to protect the ISPs... and here's how they do it.

Basically it goes like this.

Person A has some material for which s/he owns the copyrights.

Person B posts some material on a website hosted by Webhost X.  Person A believes that s/he owns the copyright to the material that Person B has posted.

Person A contacts Webhost X, and files a "Take Down Notice".  For a Take Down Notice to be "valid" it must identify the copyrighted work the Person A claims to have been infringed, and it must identify the material that Person A claims to be infringing, along with enough information to let the servie provider (Webhost X) find the material.   It has to provide enough information to let the service provider contact the complaining person (Person A) - like name, address, phone number, email address, etc.  It must also include a statement that says that person sending it is has a "good faith reason to believe" that the material infringes his/her copyright, and/or is not authorized by the copyright owner, and a statement that the information in the notice is accurate and that s/he is either the owner of the copyright s/he claims to have been infringed, or that sh/e is authorized to act on behalf of the owner.  Finally, it has to have a physical or electronic signature.*

Once the Webhost has received a Take Down Notice, the DRCA says the only way they can protect themselves from liability for the infringment, is to promptly take down the allegedly infringing material (this is so that if it is infringing, the copyright holder doesn't continue to suffer damages like lost sales of his own material because people are buying Person B's stuff instead).  However, to avoid liability related to the allegedly infringing person, they must also promptly notify the person who Person A claims is infringing that they've gotten the take down notice.

That's what Ravelry's lawyer was doing.  It makes some sense... but, as Wikipedia points out:

"The DMCA has been criticized for making it too easy for copyright owners to encourage website owners to take down allegedly infringing content and links which may in fact not be infringing. When website owners receive a takedown notice it is in their interest not to challenge it, even if it is not clear if infringement is taking place, because if the potentially infringing content is taken down the website will not be held liable. The Electronic Frontier Foundation senior IP attorney Fred von Lohmann has said this is one of the problems with the DMCA."

Ravelry is no exception.  They make no efforts whatsover to determine whether the material in question actually infringes anyone's rights.  They get a TakeDown Notice, and they pull the material. Their lawyer has been pretty up front about the fact that he just follows the rules, and leaves the determination of whether infringement really has occurred to somebody else.

This is good when Wanda Wannabe posts Dora's pattern.  This is bad when Olivia Originality posts her own pattern and Dora (or Wanda) feel threatened by her creativity and file a DCMA TakeDown Notice even though the design doesn't infringe their copyright.  Unless Olivia is a strong willed person who knows copyright law, the DCMA, and has a lot of confidence in herself, she's likely to just roll over and pull her patterns.  She won't even realize that if she follows the rules, Wanda (or Dora) will have to follow through, and then the Court  will be looking to see if the design infringes

Court?  you say?  Waitaminnit.... when did the courts come into play?

That's for tomorrow, when we discuss what one does if they've received a DCMA Take Down notice from their webhost or ISP.

 

 

*See, PC Watchdog;

 

Firestorms over not very much - part II

As I reported earlier, on Friday, I got a nastigram from another designer who felt threated by a design that I have sent out for testing.  I did my best to play nice, and even compromised on something that didn't really require it, just because I'd rather not fight over an edging.

Here's what happened next.

On Sunday, I slept in, and then went back to taking care of business - tending to Bookworm (who is sick with that evil cough thing), preparing dinner, correcting charts and written patterns both for this garment and another one also in testing, and correcting Ravelry pages to rephrase things that might have created confusion. I didn't get around to looking at messages until after 2:00 that afternoon. 

As it turns out, the fellow who had accused me of infringing on his copyright had written back Sunday morning at 4:00 a.m., insisting that not only did my design share all of the elements of his design, but that, in fact, mine included all of the information necessary to knit his!  My mind boggled.  You can't even get the number of stitches to cast on for his design from my pattern -- I tried dividing my cast on number by his and did't get an even number.  As for the rest -- none of my charts will tell you how to do anything in his design.

Of course, as far as I know, he doesn't have my pattern to look at.  I certainly haven't sent it to him. I assume that he's looked at the various pictures I've posted on Ravelry and/or here and/or Seasons of Lace. Either that, or I have a tester who has forwarded my pattern to him (whoops, more copyright violations, but I'm not going there).  Of course, if he does have a copy, his claims are even harder to comprehend.

Even though he acknowledged that "legally" I "might" be able to claim that my pattern is original, he instisted that it isn't really original.  He demanded that I change the center third of my design, alleging that any such pattern with a beaded plain section could only be perceived as a project based on his design. He said that if I were to do that, my design might be something I could call original.

I realizd that gentle conversation and easy compromise was not going to persuade him that my design was not, in fact his.  So I set about drafting a calm, well reasoned response.

Okay, first I talked to Golf Pro, called a friend and ranted for a while, asked some folks if they saw any similarities and enjoyed their vigorous "no WAY" responses, and drafted an angry letter that sounded more like I was spoiling for a fight than like I was a reasonable person.  I did not, however send that message.

Instead, I ate dinner with my family.  I drove my step-daughter home.  I spent some time with my kids, and thought about this mess. 

Then, I researched, refreshing my knowledge of copyright law, and checking on the prevalence in other patterns of every element of our designs that he claimed was "shared".  It seemed from his message that he beleives that if there were any shared elements in our designs, the only way I could have come up with them would have been to copy them from him. Among the elements he included in his list of "shared elements" was the use of  of bottom up construction. I hoped that with a little evidence and a calm, thorough response, I could resolve this silliness and get on with my life.

I fretted about Bookworm, whose fever was pushing 102 F, and who felt really awful.

It comes as no surprise to me that I didn't finsh my response before it was clearly past time to go to bed.  Instead of sending the still slightly vituperative, and still far to wordy response, I set it aside to wait until I could send something civil, cogent, and useful, and went to bed.

On Monday morning, I had a meeting with a client who has asked me to design and knit a sweater.  But before I went, I logged onto Ravelry to clear up one minor detail that I'm sure was driving the designer in question nuts.  You see, when I'd decided to abandon knitting his thing, and frogged it, I didn't delete the project page I'd put up on Ravelry.  That page had one picture:  the first 1/2 inch of the garment on the needle, resting on the copy of his pattern.  Instead of deleting that page, I just started editing al the information (changed the name, changed the pattern, changed the yarn, the yardage, the notes -- and added new pictures of the new garment as I went).  I forgot, however, to delete the old cast on pictur.  My total bad.  On Monday morning, I deleted that picture from my Ravelry project page.

And then, I dashed off to meet my client, and took her to the local yarn store to let her   choose her yarn.  We spent a couple of hours poring over yarns, and  discussing the disadvantages of using yarns with vastly differnt care requirements.  Finally, she chose her yarns, and we finished the spcific planning of her sweater over lunch.

After lunch, I tetched Kitty from school, and came home to finish revising my response to the designer.  I worked on it for a bit, and sent the draft to a friend upon whom I rely to point out when I'm being way  too wordy.  Then I had dinner, and tweaked the response based on my friend's wise advise.

Monday evening, I sent my response to the designer. It was calm, complimentary, and thorough.  It included examples of at least three other designs that shared each of the elements he cited as reasons why my design was just a copy of his.  Many of these designs predated his pattern.  Some certainly predated his life (one was from the 1880's).  I pointed out that neither he nor I have exclusive rights to any of those elements.  I included examples of several other designs that shared all of the elements that our designs share, and pointed out that neither of us has exclusive rights to those juxtapositions.

Again, I thought I was done. Until I saw the message he'd sent earlier that day (I think it arrived at my Ravelry inbox while I was out with my client).  In this one, he noted that I had removed the picture, and said that since I had been "active on Raverly" but had not responded to his message of the day before, he was withdrawing his "offer to compromise", and making a formal complaint to Ravelry.

I'm trying to be flattered that he considers me to be such a threat.  But I'm really annoyed that I spent so much of the my weekend on a person who can't even wait one full business day for someone to respond to such a serious accusation.

 And it gets "better".....

Firestorms over not very much - part I

This past weekend has been far less fun than it should have been.  And though it means that this will be along, verbose, picture free post, I kind of have to talk about it. 

In fact, this is gonna be so long that I think I'll divvy it up into several posts.  I'll try to put something fun in the midst of it all ... but I'll also wind up discussing some Federal laws that may or may not affect you, and the ways in which they're good -- and bad.

The good:  on Saturday, I drove Kitty to a tiny town about 45 minutes away so that she could participate in the State's Music Educators Association "contest".  She performed her piece beautifully (the best I'd heard it); she nailed her scales.  The judge awarded her a I (best level -- there are four).  I am proud -- she reports that her knees started shaking during the first scale, and didn't stop til she sat down after the performance. (One more reason that long skirts are a good wardrobe choice -- no one can see shaky knees).

Also good: I've finished, bathed, and photographed a hat I've designed.  My tester found an error that I've fixed, and I have high hopes that this will soon be out in the world earning money for Leukemia Research!

The bad:  I've been accused of copyright infringement on a pattern that isn't even published yet, by a man who seems to be stalking my Ravelry page.  He first wrote to me on Friday evening, declaring himself to be very upset that I'd anounced my intentions to publish what he claims is a version of his pattern as my own original design, and was further dismayed that I had "released" what he claimed to be his copywritten materials to my test kntters. He demanded that I withdraw my pattern from my test knitters, and offered a thinly veailed threat to go public with his accusations if I did not do so.  (Basically, he said if I pulled my design, he'd keep our conversation private).

I have, over the past several months, freely acknowledged that I was inspired to create my design by starting, and then rejecting, his pattern.  His pattern is simple, elegant, understated, and a quick small knit that uses one skein of yarn and a few beads.  I tried it, and found it not to my tastes, since I like larger things of that nature, and get bored, both while knitting and later when looking at, things that have too much plain garter stitch. However, I know that lots of folks like things like that, and was happy to advertise his little pattern freely.  I certainly gave him enough plugs (both here and elsewhere) that I'll be surprised if he didn't garner at least one, if not several, sales from my efforts.

Meanwhile, I started over with a new design, destined to be a huge garment, and added things willy nilly as I went. I did go with the basic outline -- bottom up.  A little lace (my lace pattern though) to start things off.  It's a pretty standard construction, and a pretty standard set of elements.  I've got a swack of examples of this concept, and this pairing of elements, from many designers over many years.  But in the end, my design is more complex, quite large, uses well over a thousand beads, and does not include a single chart that I did not design myself.

I explained this to him on Friday evening, remarking that "inspired by" doesn't mean copied.  I pointed out all of the lovely things about his pattern that mine doesn't share.  And I gently pointed out all of the ways that my design differs from his. (A quick summary of the materials lists ought to be his first clue:  His Design - 350 yards of cobweb weight yarn, ~250 beads; My Design: 1150 yards of lace-weight yarn, 1600+ beads).

Then, in the interests of good fellow-ship, and the hope that a courteous compromise early would smooth all waters and alleviate his fears, I offered to go back to make extra special sure than none of his specific elements remained in my design as they appeared in his, and to change any that I found that did.

On Saturday morning, I had a previous engagement, and so did not do anything about the whole chart thing.  On Saturday afternoon, I was off with musicians, listening to my daughter play clairnet before the the judge, and then waiting for her score to be posted.

Saturday evening, I pulled his pattern from my files, pored over his charts and my charts, and decided that even though my bottom edging is a fairly common one, they were close enough to each other that some one might be confused about that.  The edging I had originally used can be found, among other places, in Nicky Epstein's Knitting on the Edge, which was published five years before his design was released.  However, I was still more interested in peaceful cooperative solutions than in a fight over whether he could copyright that edging.So, I changed the edging chart, corrected the written pattern, and contacted my testers to inform them of the change and the reason for it. 

I figured I'd been more generous than necessary, but also went to bed moderately confident that the problem had been resolved, and I could go back to double checking the written patterns for two things out in testing land.

 

Falling in Love ... with my software

I mentioned in my last post that I'm designing a hat for a friend whose friend has leukemia.

As is my way, I'm writing up that design, and I'm using a moderately new-to-me bit of software called Intwined Studio. I bought it last summer because it has some features that my version of Knit Visualizer doesn't have.  While it is entirely possible that the new version of the software has what I want, the price of upgrading was more than I could afford.  When I found Intwined Studio for remarkably less than the upgrade price, well, I succumbed.

I've used Intwined Studio for a few things.  Until now, I kind of thought of them as mostly similar.  I liked a few things about Knit Visualizer better (like the ease of exporting the charts to an image that is then easily inserted into my Word or Publisher file, and/or simply sending on its own to a tester), and a few things about Intwined better (like the ease with which one can drag a stitch icon over an area and have the chart show it all changed instead of having to select each separate stitch one at a time, and the fact that it's legends aren't long and narrow, occupying a ton of vertical space on a page).  But today ... today I learned a new trick that is making me giddy.

You see, I often "create" stitches to work in my textured designs.  Whereever possible, I incorporate decreases into cables so they're inivisible.  I've never encountered a charting software that let me do that with any grace at all.  Until now.

Today I learned how to make my own stitches, and create the icons that form them on the charts -- and edit the way they show up in the Key (or legend). This will not only dramatically simplify writing cable patterns for me, it will also let me do beading things more easily.

I'm in love!

I'm dizzy with delight!

I'm going back to working up my hat chart with all of its invisible decreases, happy in the knowledge that I don't HAVE to write that all out even for the charted version.  And then, I'll be sending that chart out to my first tester!

 

W00t - money for leukemia research here we come.

 

Hats On....

A friend of mine's co-worker has been diagnosed with leukemia  :-(

She's asked me to knit a hat for him, and though I tried to get my yarn to work with the patterns she liked... it just didn't work. (Doesn't this sound familiar?)

So, I've been designing a yummy cabled hat with some of that yummy alpaca yarn I posted about recently.  The results?  lookin' good so far!

Why is it that whenever I get a good design, I wind up giving the finished product away? 

And this time, I've gone and knit it in dark navy, so getting decent pictures will be --- shall we say a challenge.  Looks like I'll either have to knit a second one, or put out the call for testers again.  I'm starting to feel like a real designer all of a sudden.  One pattern already out with testers .... another about to go out before the week is out.  Day-am!

Meannwhile, I seem to have lost my photo mojo.  (Actually, I just let the camera run out of juice, and keep forgetting to recharge it.)