is making and selling crafts designed by another person illegal?
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If they have patented/copyright their design, then yes it is. To be safe, when you sell your craft, give credit for the design but made by you. To be even safer, contact the person who designed it and ask them for permission to make and sell these. It would help a lot to know what the craft is, and if you are sure this individual is the original designer and did not get it from someone else. If you need more help feel free to contact me: aagould@hotmail .com
Angi
It depends on what your definition of “illegal” is. My friend copies a lot of handpainted woodcrafts that are designed in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. She doesn’t put “made in El Salvador”, but she designs the little boxes and sells them here, and a lot of people from those countries buy them, because it brings them back memories of their country. In fact, many people KNOW that she makes them (even though they are not made in those countries, and they ASK her to custom-make little things to decorate their kids’ rooms and stuff.
Now, there do exist arts and crafts that are patented and you have to be very careful about how you re-design them so that you don’t infringe on anyone else’s rights.
But when it comes to these little Latin American handpainted stuff, you can get away with re-designing just about anything.
Making them is not illegal (nor then using them yourself or giving as gifts), but *selling* many of them would be–especially if they’ve been printed in a book/etc or otherwise copyrighted by anyone (after 1923, I think it is).
Whether you’d get *caught* (and/or prosecuted) is a different issue.
You can always ask for permission from the copyright holder (the creator, or more often the publisher if there is one), but you may not be granted permission. Many books allow a certain number of items from a project to be made and sold by the purchaser of the book though… look in the fine print of the book or contact the publisher/etc.
How much you might *change* the items before selling them to avoid violating copyright/trademark/etc is also an important issue.
The “ethical” issue is separate from the legal issue.
Most people feel that others shouldn’t copy an originator’s exact ideas (unless they become or were reasonably common knowledge, or the person has revealed how they’re done, etc) then benefit from them by selling, at least until the originator has a chance to make money from their idea for a while in the beginning, and that they shouldn’t even claim the novel idea as their own (though very few things are ever totally original ideas, inspired from nothing—the degrees of that are important though). Also, people who do either of those things can ruin their own reputations, and not be welcome in many groups dealing with that topic.
Check out my previous answers to similar questions asked here before about doing this for more info on the legal aspects:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080926114303AA8smXD
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090531062420AAUdHzg
And check out this page at my site for even more on the subject of copyrights, trademarks, “copying” things and/or “owning” ideas, etc, especially as relating to arts and crafts:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/owning_copyrights.htm
HTH,
Diane B.