The Legalities of Fan Art

Apparently, since this is an academic class, I still have to do work?? :/ What is this madness?

So to start off my research based part of the posts I will be referencing my fan-based craft tutorial blog, Parks and Recipes. 

This blog was created out of my need to connect with Parks and Recreation outside of the TV set. My sister is a huge fan of the show, and for her birthday I bought her two shirts from the NBC Universal Website 

These are the shirts if case you were wondering:

Here is where issues start to come in: Copyright. Parks and Recreation and all its related products are licensed by the NBC Universal company. I learned all about this in my Introduction to Media Studies as well as Learning From YouTube. It is a huge problem for fandom crafters, especially within the online environment.

I tried to avoid these issues. My first step in sneaking around this issue was to put in "inspired by". This suggests that the idea was from the copyrighted work, but the project itself was original and only inspired by, not taken from, the copyrighted material. This is my version of putting "unofficial" in front of my fandom projects.

Update: I messed up. Using "inspired by" does not save you from copyright issues

(https://www.etsy.com/teams/7718/questions/discuss/14552307/)

After a pretty quick google search, I found this wikipedia-type page that details the legalities of fan art and profit. Basically, you can't profit from copyrighted material if you are not the copyright owner. I'm pretty safe in a lot of these terms because I am not profiting from these blog posts, nor will I profit from any type of fan craft I design.

However, once an artist starts profiting off of a trademarked product, they are breaking copyright laws and treading into illegal territory. Even using the name in the title or the tags can result in copyright infringement if you are profiting from the project.

Good luck out there...the issues are murky and big companies can be cruel in regards to personal work with their trademarked symbols. In the end, these companies are after profits and they can and will shut you down for entering their territory. Tread carefully.

Further Reading:
 https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/05/13/the-messy-world-of-fan-art-and-copyright/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2044685/i-almost-got-sued-for-knitting-a-firefly-hat-the-legal-risks-of-pop-culture-fan-art.html

http://www.craftsandcopyrights.com/faq.html

Reading an "old fashioned' Knitting Pattern with DIY Learning

I am super excited because today I will do starting to knit my second sweater! It's a big undertaking but I have my yarn and my pattern. This pattern is from a magazine that I love, not only because it's named "Rebecca" but also because their patterns turn our quite nicely. I made a scarf over the summer from a "Rebecca" pattern and it was very simple and ending up looking really pretty.

However, knitting patterns are notoriously difficult to read. 

So, today I am going to walk you through this sweater pattern and how I do my online crafting research. I could do this for every part of the pattern, but that would make an unnecessarily long and rather repetitive post, so I will just be showing you the basics of my online craft searches and how ridiculously simple it can be to clarify your crafting confusion. 

Title: Raglan Sweater in Half Fisherman's Rib

I want to know what a raglan sweater is, what it will look like, and what makes it different from knitting other kinds of sweaters. A quick google search should fix that.

Interesting. I am now curious about the sleeves, because they have a different style than the ones I am used to. I can skim this article from craftsy: http://www.craftsy.com/article/understanding-raglan-sleeves

Also, I have never heard of half fisherman's rib before. I'm going to google that. 

My Google search came up with an explanation right away. Simply clicking on the images tab will show me some examples of what this stitch may look like. 

This image search can also help influence my color and yarn choices. Different types of yarn and different colors of yarn will look different, even if you are using the same stitch. This can show me the basic design without my knitting an entire swatch. 

Finally, YouTube:

I hope this post gave you a bit more insight into how the online environment can really benefit the average crafter. Feel free to comment if you have any questions and as always, stay creative!

Rebecca