Okay, I wasn't going to say anything about the latest tempest in a Knitty teapot and I'm not trying to get the snark flying again, but I just opened the pattern done by the Professional Knit Designer and the one in Knitty - and uh, they're not the same. One is knitted horizontally around the head, with picked up stitches for the top, the other is done in the round. That's a pretty significant design difference, requiring the designer to make different calculations for sizing, etc., and requiring different skills of the knitter. When I first read this controversy I thought that somehow the designer in Knitty had inadvertently hit on a near duplicate of the PKD's pattern, and that the differences must be so slight it would appear to be copyright infringement, inadvertent as it may be. It sure sounded like it when the issue was raised, but that's not the case. Now I REALLY don't get it. Is the claim that it's somehow copyright infringement because someone else had the same very logical idea to make a famous style of furry hat out of a furry yarn? It's a cute hat, don't get me wrong, but it isn't like, a stunningly original concept. I'm not an intellectual property wonk but I know that it takes more than "It looks like what I did," to make a claim, and even a cursory reading of the patterns shows the major structural difference.

A parallel exists in the felted bag phenomenon - Some patterns look like other patterns, the bags are similar in shape, because duh, there's only so much you can do with a bag, but as far as I know, nobody's hollering that they're being ripped off. I've made the Booga J bag and the Constant Companion, one's a free pattern, one isn't, and they're overall the same shape, rectangular, but the CC has shaping and finishing details that the Booga does not. No offense to the Booga designer or its legion of fans, I've made two and I think it's cute, but I like the CC bag better, because the finishing details, like knitting in the holes for the straps and the I-cord bind-off, make a nice finished top on the bag and doesn't require me to try to line the holes up myself. Personal preference, that's all. People who hate I-cord bindoffs (and I know they are legion) would prefer the Booga style. They are not the same design, even though there is a resemblance in the finished product.

Similarly, someone who is turned off by working a hat in the round on circulars may prefer the PKD's design over the one in Knitty. They are not the same.

It certainly would have a very chilling effect on knitting design, or any kind of design, if we were really required to do a Google search on every idea we have and drop it immediately if someone else has ever done something that looks similar, no matter how generic or obvious the concept or how different our own excecution of the idea may be. But we don't have to do that.


My friend L reminded me that Petsmart is doing Pet Photos with Santa tomorrow, and coincidentally, I just gave Murphy a good bath and brush, and he's all silky and shiny (for the next 24 hours, if I'm lucky). This should be an adventure. Murphy loves Petsmart, but I hardly ever take him there because if he's with me, all my attention is focused on keeping him from pissing off, and being eaten by, a passing Rottweiler. But this will not be a shopping trip, he will be tucked firmly under my arm and not trying to leap out of the basket to kiss every big dog he sees, so we'll see how it goes.