Selling on crazypatterns

Hi everyone,

A little bit about me: I’m Meike, 35 years old. I’ve been passionately crocheting from patterns for eight years.
I recently started writing my own patterns. Four of them are already finished. Now I’m just waiting for my VAT ID so I can start selling.

Two things are on my mind before I create more patterns:

1. I love things from Disney, Pixar, Universal & Co. My niece and nephew also always want crocheted characters from their favorite movies. As far as I understand, though, it’s not advisable in Germany to write patterns for them because of licensing and the like. Am I seeing that correctly? Even here on crazypatterns, I occasionally see a pattern for well-known characters. Is that not a problem???

2. I write my patterns based on my own wild ideas and on the ideas of my niece and nephew.
For example, if a dog is requested, I just start crocheting and write things down as I go. Now there is surely a pattern online that looks similar. Has anyone here ever had problems with this?
I mean, a dog is a dog and a horse is a horse. There will always be similarities.

As a small side-business owner, I definitely don’t want to get myself into any kind of trouble.

Thank you in advance for your responses, and I hope it’s okay to simply start a post like this in the forum. Unfortunately, I didn’t know whether there was another way to exchange ideas.

I wish you all a lovely evening

Hi Meike,

you’re right about the licensed products.

Of course you can crochet animals or other figures based on your own ideas or the kids’ ideas.
They just shouldn’t resemble well-known characters or bear their names.
So don’t call it “Snoopy”—call it “Floppy Ears” or something like that instead.

I myself take great care to ensure that my figures are unique. When I have an idea, I always check first to see if something similar already exists. If the similarity is too great, I either abandon the idea or try to make it completely different. Personally, I really don’t like it when someone gets “inspired” by my figures and copies 80% of them or when certain similarities are obvious. To me, that has nothing to do with creativity—it’s simply “idea theft.” My tip: Check beforehand to see if something similar already exists. If there’s a similarity, either crochet something different or modify it so there aren’t any problems. It’s uniqueness that sets you apart from the crowd😉

On the topic of licensed characters:
In my opinion, simply renaming the characters isn’t enough to avoid trouble. I personally really like Disney too, but I refrain from designing anything along those lines. 

I also stay away from all that “well-known” stuff. It’s too risky for me. Even though I’m a huge fan of a certain
little wizard, I just crochet him for myself as decoration.

My niece names the animals, and luckily so far, only very normal names have come up.

I definitely don’t want to copy anyone, even though after buying nearly 100 patterns, I do have certain ideas in mind. But during my first attempts, I noticed that something similar is already available online. And now I’m wondering whether I should even offer this pattern for sale. 

I phrased that a bit ambiguously earlier.
Of course I know that just changing the name isn’t enough.

As others have already mentioned—it’s best to stay completely away from licensed characters. Unfortunately, I had to accept that too, because my very first pattern was for a slightly potbellied, bald yellow man :D Luckily, I did my research beforehand and decided not to publish it.
(And by the way, I’m also a huge fan of that wizard—if you mean the one with the scar and round glasses, haha.)

By the way, it’s not even allowed to have licensed products in the background of your product photos.
For example, if you crochet an elephant, it shouldn’t be sitting on a Jungle Book blanket or anything like that. Even that can cause trouble if it comes out.

On the topic of copying in general:
To be honest, I don’t stress about it. I make my stuff and list it. Like you said… a horse is just a horse, and there are bound to be similarities. If I’m 100% sure I didn’t copy anything from anywhere, I don’t go searching the entire internet for similar patterns :)
With shawls, for example, there are also a lot of similarities. Especially with “simple” patterns. That’s just how it is—there are only a limited number of patterns :)

I wish you all the best and lots of success!

The thing with licensed products is a bit of a gray area—I’m sure plenty of people would love to have some.
Snoopy is a good example; you recognize him right away. But if I create a dog like that in pink and call it Fiffi, is that still forbidden? So does it come down to the exact character, or does it also apply to a similar shape?
As a kid, I was a Pluto fan, and my mom knitted one for me—it was probably pretty simple. But of course, she didn’t sell the pattern.
Interesting topic.

So. I once designed a bee that looked very similar to a very well-known bee but was slightly modified (and the license holders don’t care at all about the color changes! It looked very similar to it—whether green, blue, etc.). I wanted to give it a different name and publish the pattern. Since I’m naturally very cautious when it comes to licensing, I thought… OK, I’ll look up the license holder, send an email, and ask how things work. No sooner said than done! Long story short: I could have bought a license for 3,500 euros to publish the patterns. Without that license, I would have faced a five-figure fine. Of course, I didn’t do that and destroyed the patterns. But I thought it was really cheeky that the license holder wanted to get the patterns from me—including all rights—for free so he could publish them on his website. So I offered him the pattern, including all rights, for 3,500 euros 😀 He didn’t find that funny, but I sure did.

The moral of the story: Stay away from licensed products—unless you actually have a license to sell them 😉

I don’t know the legal situation either, but my gut tells me that just using a different name isn’t enough.

I often crochet characters for my family. I enjoy it and see it as a challenge for myself. But just because I could call the motif on the pillow I’m currently crocheting “Green Man,” it’s still clearly the “Hulk” character from The Avengers.

In my personal time, I crochet licensed characters and give them away, but I only write patterns for myself. That said, I’ve never made the same character twice. Otherwise, the challenge and excitement would be gone.  

Okay, so I’ll keep crocheting the licensed characters for myself and the kids.
But everything seems to be easier in America. There are patterns for ALL the well-known characters there. I’ve already bought several. 

Well, it’s not any easier there—in Germany, as with so many things, people are just a bit more rule-oriented, so they tend to stick to the guidelines :) (Exceptions prove the rule.)

It’s prohibited everywhere.

Hi Meike,

Patterns based on products whose copyright is held by third parties are no longer published by crazypatterns. It does not matter what form the product exists in, whether as a drawing or in other forms.
Since crazypatterns acts as the seller, crazypatterns can also be held liable for any damages. That is why we do not approve such patterns.
It is also not enough to slightly change the name or appearance. The best approach is still to use your own creativity and develop a completely original design. That way, you are always on the safe side.
How other countries or other DIY platforms handle this is not important to us.


@everyone
It cannot be ruled out that, among the many patterns, there are still some that should actually have been removed long ago.
When we introduced the rule, we reviewed all categories and deleted the patterns, but of course it is possible that some slipped through. If you happen to see such patterns, you can help us by reporting the patterns to support.

Best regards
Michaela
crazypatterns support

and if you search for “Minion,” you’ll find quite a few results ;-)

@Petra
It’s best to report anything you notice to support.
The more eyes, the better. :)
Thanks.

How can I report a product to Support? 

By email: support@crazypatterns.net

Please copy and paste the link.

Thank you.

Kind regards
Michaela
Crazypatterns Support