Deja Vu

Anyone recognize this?

It's my version of the Chevron Scarf from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Or is it? Could it instead be considered an original design?

If you haven't guessed by now, this is yet another post on copyright. This time, I'm not motivated by any particular incident. Rather, I'm motivated because I've been thinking about the issue a lot, and I've been reading again. (Look out, folks, it's always dangerous - and long - when I've been reading.) One of the many aspirations I committed to (though it remains unenumerated) was reading more in the new year, and in particular getting through some of my back issues of my favorite mag, The New Yorker.

When I released my free teeny tiny sweater before Christmas, shortly after my rather infamous copyright post (which concerned the bejeezus out of several blogging friends and concerned the real offender not one bit), I did a lot of ruminating about copyright, mostly because the pattern struck me as cute and fun, but not terribly original. It got me thinking about what exactly we protect when we copyright something and the societal purpose behind copyright. I had a lot of nebulous thoughts about creativity and uniqueness, but I didn't ever articulate those thoughts clearly in my own head, and I certainly did not entertain a post on the subject. Enter the New Yorker, and one of my all time favorite contributors, Malcolm Gladwell.*

Enter, more specifically, this article. Go ahead and read it. Mr. Gladwell is more able to say what he says than I am to paraphrase it, and it's very interesting.

The Article
Gladwell uses music to discuss some of the concepts that are key to copyright, most specifically: originality, triviality (or in legalese whether the copying is de minimus), and traditionality (I think I just made up a word, but basically what I'm getting at is whether something has been around so long that it is in the public domain).

He takes a series of four notes from Beethoven's famous symphony - you know the ones - da da da duuuummmm....... (G, G, G, E flat) - and looks at whether they are original. The answer is both yes and no. The notes themselves are too small a thing to be copyrighted. If you copied them it would be trivial or de minimus. And this makes sense. There are a very finite number of notes in the musical scale and if you could restrict the use of tiny little sequences, new songs would never get written. In fact, the notes have been used in many a composition since Beethoven wrote them, and before he wrote them as well. The analogy in knitting is something like the seed stitch. There may be some very elaborate stitch patterns (such as something Barbara Walker cooked up) that are large scale enough to be copyrighted, but for the most part, a series of stitches is just that. No one owns it, because it forms the building blocks for everything else, and no one could get anything done without access to this basic sequence.

Beethoven's phrasing of the notes in this combination is what makes them distinctive or "original". It's that "little bit more" that lets you know this is Beethoven. Those distinctive combinations of elements are what make knitted works original as well. In the case of the Chevron scarf its the garter stitch used next to the chevron, which repeats with a certain regularity, using a distinctive yarn, etc. If you saw it somewhere else, you would know where it originated.

Finally, there's my new word, "traditionality". This is really the best element of all, because it dictates that whether the thing you've created is really unique or not, after a certain amount of time it's up for grabs, regardless. Today, anyone can da da da duuuummmm....... to their heart's content. We all know where it came from, but irrespective of its origin, it belongs to everyone now. Lucky us. For knitters there are thousands of beautiful, complex stitch patterns - Andean tigers, Celtic-looking cables - that are in the public domain and available for use. I think this is a particularly great thing, as some of the best creative works are the ones that reference the great creative works of the past.**

The Minisweater
Alright, I think I muttered something about relating this to the teeny tiny sweaters. When I first designed one myself, I had some concern about sharing the pattern with you, because I thought that perhaps the original (not mine) was too original. Then I realized that I had seen sweater ornaments in at least three books (and upon later reflection, five books, and upon further inspection, I even found a free pattern from Springwater Fiber Workshop for a top-down minisweater - also very cute - you should give it a try). And as I thought about it, I began to understand that a minisweater is just an item, like a mitten, or a hat, or anything else and that the idea of it is not unique. Futhermore, you could take any basic sweater shape and just scale it down and voila! New minisweater. Which is why I felt comfortable passing it on to you, and also why I didn't put a really biting copyright message at the bottom of it. True, if you use my instructions and put my special little cable in your minisweater and call it your own, I will consider you to be a very bad person and someone who has violated copyright, but I didn't want to make anyone think that the mere idea of the minisweater ornament was copyrightable (is that another new word? It's early here). I also didn't want to stop people from playing around and posting variations, because in general I like to see variations on my patterns, and in particular I am not so attached to this one that I mind it if you repeat some of the instructions on your own site as long as you stick my name and a link in there somewhere (repeating instructions from someone else's pattern is usually a no-no, so don't do it for my other patterns or anyone else's without permission).

The Scarf
I'm guessing you've noticed that the scarf pictured above isn't listed in the sidebar. I bet you're wondering if it's going to be listed as a design or a commercial pattern, as well. Well, despite the obvious incentive to have another knit in the design column, I'm calling this one Joelle's.

Technically, I may not have to. The chevron pattern itself is traditional and no longer subject to copyright protection (if it ever was). My scarf is made with a different yarn, and knit on different size needles. I used only one color of yarn rather than two. I cast on a different number of stitches, and in fact, the pattern itself is different (it's based on a chevron with multiples of 3 sts rather than 4).

Joelle might be able to get me because the scarf's defining characteristics are copied. I used a variegated merino wool in a triple-chevron repeat to make a scarf with a purled border. Just looking at it you can tell its intended to be the same thing. (If you can learn to describe things in this way and be airtight about it you're well on your way to patent certification - better you than me.) Still, I could have come up with the same thing independently...

The point is that I didn't, and I know I didn't. I bought the book, coveted the pattern, and decided to make it work for Artyarns Supermerino,*** since that is what I had on hand. In this case, what makes the copyright for me is not so much the uniqueness of the design, but rather the fact that I know I pirated the concept.

Still, it's something to think about.

*As an aside let me note right now that I have never, ever read an article by this man that wasn't fascinating. He writes on myriad topics and finds relationships between seemingly unrelated subjects. As soon as I move from the article-reading phase of my aspiration to the book-reading phase I am getting myself to the nearest independent bookseller and buying one of his books. You should, too.

**Didn't you love it when The Simpsons referenced All in the Family? What an amazingly clever show - and I'm not even a Simpsons fan. That my friends, is art.

***If you own Joelle's book and would like to use Supermerino to make a Chevron scarf like mine, all you need to do is cast on 36 sts instead of the number in the pattern, and then follow the directions using multiples of 3 rather than 4. For example, if Joelle says k2tog 8 times, instead k2tog 6 times. Those of you who own the pattern now have enough info to modify it, and those who don't - well, you don't. If you need the scarf that badly, go buy the book. It has wonderful ideas for simple uses of color and texture that create beautiful finished items. It's well worth the money simply for the inspiration.