Being a scroll saw person, and a juried member of an Artists Guild, I asked the copyright question early on. Then, as I started doing some of my own designs and creating patterns, I researched further. The gist I got was: if you copy verbatim someone else's work, you are infringing on their work and/or intellectual rights whether copyrighted or not. Items marked copyright protected, or items you mass produce and sell, do come under special legal umbrellas and permission must be gotten. But for the small quantity people that we are: if you look at someone elses concept and then produce it with your own artistic spin on it, that unique new creation is yours. For instance, running a copy of a published scrollsaw pattern and selling copies or sharing it with others without their having paid the publisher and/or designer could be called piracy and has legal ramifications---but using a pattern you paid for (individually or in a magazine, etc & as many times as you want) and selling the pieces you make from it, is totally legal and not an infringement because you produced a unique wood piece from the idea. In our litigious "I'm going to sue you" society, using anything copyrighted (including photos online) is a risk---but if you put your own spin on it you just hit the gray area of loopholes and should be fine. And to be courteous, if you use someone elses concept or design, it never hurts to give them credit. If I make a piece using a pattern designed by "Dudley DooItRight" and published in XYZ magazine or book, then on the back of the piece I write: Made by Linda David, Design by Dudley DooItRight. Let's face it---a pattern or picture or logo is someone elses creation, but what we do artistically changes it to and each one of us do it differently and no 2 pieces of wood allow for 100% identical pieces and honesty goes a long way in proving intentions.
