Crafting Copyright Confusion Causes Katian Craziness

(Don't hit. How often do I get to be that alliterative? ^_~)

Mini rants:

Rant 1: The need to slap up an "I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice" disclaimer on stuff like this. Why do we live in such a paranoid society? Frivilous lawsuits are actually very rare. And usually started by corporations, not individuals out to make a buck.

Rant 2:

• Clothing is a useful good.
• Useful goods cannot be copyright.
• Therefore, a clothing pattern with a standard "all rights reserved" copyright notice and nothing supplemental to that covers the pattern itself, but NOT the finished item. It is not "always illegal to make something for sale from a copyrighted pattern."
• Many designers now do include extra licensing terms. How legal these are remains to be seen, but in a society that allows click-through licenses to add additional conditions with no additional return, the odds are good they would be binding. *eye roll*

Rant 3: There is a difference between 'legal', 'ethical', and 'moral'. Going to the almighty dictionary:

• Legal: conforming to or permitted by law.
• Ethical: conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct.
• Moral: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.

Ideally the three coincide, but something can be any one without being the other two. Especially easy to conflate are ethical and moral, but they are different. Indeed, many ethical practices are immoral. For example, a doctor or hospital who refuses to treat a mortally ill patient who can't pay may be ethically in the States (acceptable behavior of the profession), but I will look askance at you if you think that is moral.

The other thing to remember is that morality is changeable and individual. There are certain big things that society as a whole considers immoral (example: murder), but even those are changeable and debatable given the circumstances (example: killing during a war).

If you ever want to see the stages of moral development in action, watch a copyright and licensing thread on a craft board. I would probably help my sanity a lot of I'd remember that many people don't make it past level 4, "legal = right".

(In general, it's sad how many people never get past the second stage - "What's in it for me?".)