Imitation is the sincerest form of thievery

There is a fine line between imitation and larceny. There is a finely honed route from the catwalk to the high street and they serve each other well in a parasitic fashion. The couture designers show their collections, the high street steal their ideas. The design houses sell more perfume and handbags on the back of being the originators of the current look.
When you’re an independent designer you don’t have a line of perfume to flog on the back of your current collection.
All you have are your designs and your desire, need and legal right to be recognised for your work.

Last Christmas Susan Crawford had a reindeer sweater copied by H&M.

Here is the original of The Perfect Christmas Jumper

(c) Susan Crawford

The only image I can find of the H&M version is from the Christmas episode of Glee.

(c) http://www.possessionista.com/2010_11_14_archive.html

And now it is the turn of Kate Davies. Kate Davies, an academic turned knitting designer wrote  a pattern called O W L S. It is iconic, instantly recognizable and deservedly successful.

(C) Kate Davies

Debenhams have launched a sweater that looks like this:

(C) @Ofthesparrows – apologies I don’t know your RL name

Same yoke, same cable placements, same animal.

(Since writing this, Kate has written about it on her own blog needled)

How are small independent designers supposed to fund a fight against the likes of Hennes  and Debenhams?

Many would argue that Kate Davies and Susan Crawford aren’t going to lose any pattern sales because of this. After all if you’re going to Debenhams to buy a 100% acrylic, machine-knitted-in-China sweater you’re not very likely to hand knit the original as an alternative.

Others may say you can’t copyright an idea and who’s to say that Debenhams didn’t come up with the idea themselves.

Copyright doesn’t have to be exerted. Copyright exists the moment a copyrightable item is created. The moment that Kate Davies and Susan Crawford created something out of their ideas they owned the copyright to their patterns and they have a right to profit from that copyright.

The reality is that both companies are probably unaware that any copyright infraction exists. They were  most likely presented with these items by an off-shore design house who have identified ravelry as a good source of cheap design thievery.

What next? A Colour Affection in Miss Selfridge. A Baktus in M&S?

Call to arms

So how far do you want to go? What’s your preferred mode of outrage?  Hands up here, I’m not giving up Diet Coke ™ – it’s only the caffeine in the 243 cans I’ve drunk so far this morning which is keeping me going. Also some of the companies who are sponsors are US centric so the impact from the UK and other coutries will be negligible. Also I am not going to not watch the Olympics. I am too excited about the event to let a small-minded US bureaucrat to put me off. I will however, knit constantly and throughout the Olympics and will always remember those projects completed whilst watching an obscure class in weight-lifting or some other sport which piques my interest once every four years.

I also need to make this clear, it’s the US Olympic committee which has started the action. Not LOCOG (although there is another rant  story there).

In these days of social media it is easy to annoy people get your point across.

If you are on Twitter then keep #ravelympics trending and make your feelings felt to @USOlympic.

You can donate to Ravelry. Casey has stated that they are not going to waste money fighting the case, and I agree with changing the name in order to shut up the bureaucrats. But rav will still have some legal costs to bear and it never hurts to swell their coffers.  You can donate to ravelry here.

You can also write a letter like I did and email it to  communications@usoc.org:

Brett Hirsch
Law Clerk
Office of the General Counsel
United States Olympic Committee
1 Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, CO 80909

This is what I have written to him:

Dear Mr Hirsh

I have read your letter to Mr Forbes at Ravelry.com. I understand your issue with the term “Ravelympics” abusing your trademarks. In all honesty, you are not trying to uphold the ideals of the Olympic spirit, but are trying to protect commercial interests of both yourselves and your sponsors. In protecting your sponsors’ efforts, you have in turn offended 2,000,000 members of ravelry. A powerful group who when piqued have proven time and again, their ability to organize and lobby in the name of causes they feel are just and deserving. You cannot have failed to notice the amount of activity on social networks over the last 12 hours concerning @USOlympic and #ravelympics. I hope your letter was approved prior to sending it, as otherwise I guess you might have some explaining to do to your bosses.

I think you could have perhaps chosen your words more carefully. In accusing knitters and crafters of denigrating the efforts of the athletes, you in turn denigrate us and our efforts. The Ravelympics exists to celebrate the Olympic Games, not to ridicule it. Teams put in thought, creativity, skill and in many cases a great deal of zeal and competitive effort.

Knitters like bad puns, that’s really the only “crime” committed here. So the titles of the categories are a bit silly. That in no way is indicative of the spirit of teams involved in Ravelympics. From your letter, it is obvious you have a Ravelry account so you can easily take a look at some of the past glories and by surfing the forum boards you will be able to gauge (sorry knitterly pun there) the level of committed and respectful involvement of these people.

We do not compare ourselves to the athletes competing, we are hobbyists but we take what we do seriously, and more importantly, we do it very well and I would say that the knitting and crafting community, as exemplified by Ravelry does indeed uphold the ideals of the Olympics.

We would like an apology, an open letter to Ravelry would do. I would even be happy to knit something for you so you can see the beauty and craftmanship in something handmade.

If knitters and crafters are denigrating the Olympic movement, can you tell me what a group of people sitting at home watching the Games on the TV, whilst drinking beer and eating junk food does for the Olympic spirit, or is that acceptable if they are drinking Coke ™ and Bud ™, eating McDonalds ™.

My advice, don’t judge what you don’t know.

Yours sincerely

Sophie Durlacher

Saffron Walden, England.

So what is this thing called Ravelympics?

Ravelympics is run by ravelry.com (free login required), an award-winning social networking database for knitters and other fibre enthusiasts. During the summer and winter Olympics, teams cast on during the opening ceremony and knit throughout, whilst watching, the Olympics. It is good-hearted, good-natured, fiercely competitive fun. It motivates people from around the world to come together for a period of two weeks in order to achieve something where the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts.

The US Olympic committee take great exception to this.

Their lawyers wrote a letter to Ravelry – here is an edited version:

Dear Mr. Forbes,

In March 14, 2011, my colleague, Carol Gross, corresponded with your attorney, Craig Selmach [sic], in regard to a pin listed as the “2010 Ravelympic Badge of Glory.”  At that time, she explained that the use of RAVELYMPIC infringed upon the USOC’s intellectual property rights, and you kindly removed the pin from the website.  I was hoping to close our file on this matter, but upon further review of your website, I found more infringing content.

The USOC would like to settle this matter on an amicable basis. However, we must request the following actions be taken.

1.  Changing the name of the event, the “Ravelympics.”;  The athletes of Team USA have usually spent the better part of their entire lives training for the opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.  For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of their sporting career.  Over more than a century, the Olympic Games have brought athletes around the world together to compete in an event that has come to mean much more than just a competition between the world’s best athletes.  The Olympic Games represent ideals that go beyond sport to encompass culture and education, tolerance and respect, world peace and harmony.

The USOC is responsible for preserving the Olympic Movement and its ideals within the United States.  Part of that responsibility is to ensure that Olympic trademarks, imagery and terminology are protected and given the appropriate respect.  We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.

It looks as if this is the third time that the Ravelympics have been organized, each coinciding with an Olympic year (2008, 2010, and 2012).  The name Ravelympics is clearly derived from the terms “Ravelry” (the name of your website) and OLYMPICS, making RAVELYMPICS a simulation of the mark OLYMPIC tending to falsely suggest a connection to the Olympic Movement.  Thus, the use of RAVELYMPICS is prohibited by the Act.  Knowing this, we are sure that you can appreciate the need for you to re-name the event, to something like the Ravelry Games.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.  We would appreciate a written reply to this letter by no later than June 19, 2012.  If you would like to discuss this matter directly, please feel free to contact me at the number above, or you may reach my colleague, Carol Gross.

Kindest Regards,

Brett Hirsch

Law Clerk

Office of the General Counsel

United States Olympic Committee

1 Olympic Plaza

Colorado Springs, CO 80909

We can all accept that in this day and age lawyers are bound to get litigious around issues of trademark and copyright. But they do this to protect commercial interests. No commercial interests are served by the ravelympics. Ravelry makes no profit from them.

So let’s go back and read that again shall we:

The Olympic Games represent ideals that go beyond sport to encompass culture and education, tolerance and respect, world peace and harmony.

So you’re  threatening us with legal action in order to preserve these “ideals”.

We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.

You only need to be familiar with the Woolsack project to know that crafters have the utmost respect and admiration for the athletes competing this summer.

Knitters like bad puns. Is that really a case for legal proceedings?

Knitters are in the main, relentless perfectionists who think nothing of undoing three days’ work because they spotted a mistake in their cast-on row. The effort, imagination and drive that goes into some of the teams during the Ravelympics has to be admired for its sheer unrelenting audacity.

If the US Olympic committee can put in front of me one single athlete competing this summer who feels denigrated by our efforts then please haul me in front of a judge. I would also be interested to know how the athletes feel about some of the sponsors chosen this summer.

So that’s the background. What next. Casey, one half of the team over at Ravelry admits that the name should probably be changed. We can accept that.

We don’t accept being bullied.

So in my next post will be information about the organizations we can target and what to say to them.