Intellectual Property & rights to patterns

Copyright and originality

Copyright varies by territory. In most countries it is not necessary to register your copyright – your rights exist automatically. You can find more information on how copyright works in the UK here. Most countries (including the EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are signatories to the Berne Convention (or are bound by it by being members of ‘TRIPS’ which is a World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement) which means that copyright created in one signatory country must be recognised in all the others. You can find out more about protecting your copyright outside of the UK here.

How unique does my pattern need to be? Can you borrow a stitch pattern from a stitchionary? Kate Atherley answers these questions and more here.

Pattern rights

LoveCrafts is a platform for you to sell your patterns through. Rest assured that you still have full ownership of the copyright of your pattern PDF. Please make sure that you state the copyright clearly on them by using the © sign on your work before you load them onsite.

We actively market the patterns for sale on LoveCrafts, so may use your pattern’s images for these marketing efforts from time to time.

Infringement of intellectual property

You are responsible for ensuring your patterns comply with our Designers’ Terms, Terms of Use and the law, including selling patterns which are free from intellectual property infringement. Our pattern approval process aims to identify any plagiarised content. 

If there has been a breach of our Designers’ Terms, Terms of Use and/or the law, without limitation to other remedies we may employ, we may limit your activity, remove or disable access to the pattern, warn other users of your actions, suspend or terminate your membership or status as a designer and refuse to provide our services to you.

We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (a US copyright law) (“DMCA”) and the EU Electronic Commerce Directive 2000. If you have spotted any lookalikes or plagiarism onsite, or are worried that a pattern is infringing on someone else’s copyright, please click here for information about submitting a DMCA notice.  You may also use our DMCA notice form to report other breaches of intellectual property, such as breaches of trademarks, whether in the United States or otherwise.

Designer terms

Please find our Designer Terms & Conditions here.