My Rant about Tutorials

 I get so tired of hearing people bicker over being copied. Can't we all just get along? For pete's sake, there is nothing new under the sun. We are all humans and as such, we are prone to come up with the same idea at one time or another. There are so many people hitting the internet these days in a sort of "tutorial gold rush", trying to make a buck off their fellow jewelry makers that I just get irritated and sad at the same time. I rarely buy a tutorial anymore because you never know when, after spending $25 on said tut, the second page says "for your use only, do not make this design to sell" or something along that line. The writer never warns you of that first. If I only wanted to make one (whatever the tut was for) then I would just buy the (whatever the tut was for) from the author in the first place.

There are only so many ways you can make a heart bead, there are only so many macrame stitches, and after a while all the wire wrapping looks the same. People need to get over themselves. If you're afraid of someone stealing your design, don't show it on the internet, or at the very least, realize that people have been making jewelry for thousands of years and you may very well be the idea thief. Don't expect people to pay more for a tutorial than they do at the bookstore for a book that is full of 'tutorials' and then not allow them to use the design they just paid for, for profit.

I sent some beads to someone a few months ago and a few weeks later she sent me a link to another bead maker's website, where there were some beads that could be perceived as similar to mine. The beads I sent were fruits and the other web page had the same kind of fruit on it. I sent a note back to the lady saying that I had heard of this bead maker before and that I thought it was funny how (at that time of year) we were both making strawberries. Now, I hadn't seen this bead maker's strawberries before and you could see how varied our styles were (since we are two different artists) and I didn't think anything of it. But it occured to me recently that the person I sent the beads to possibly thought I was 'stealing' the design of a better known artist. That really irritates me. Who doesn't think of strawberries in June??

One beadmaker who wishes to remain nameless says this:
"As I HAVE been through the utter garbage and nonsense of "I OWN that bead technique" and getting served "Cease and Desist" from lawyers.... I can tell you that people are both stupid and nuts! I got legally harassed this last year by an artist that swore she had invented seafan beads (beads with tweezed out fans) and organic nugget beads with "swirls" in the glass, bump ornamentation and murrini on them! She'd been making these since 2009 and was therefore "first". She hadn't ever heard of Ann Scherm Baldwin of of the "Lola Bead" series.... or the dozen other artists known for making these style of beads in the late 1990's and early 2000's
A copyright ISN'T a "patent"! A "copyright" only protects that one bead and your expression in that ONE bead! Just because you copyright it doesn't mean that your's was the first ever made in that style or design or using that combination of techniques!!! It also doesn't mean others can't make similar beads employing the same techniques, style or colors! A copyright only protects against someone making a blatant and OBVIOUS COPY of that ONE PARTICULAR BEAD!
This is a matter of educating the "lives under a rock" beadmakers that DON'T attend shows, have NEVER attended a Gathering or hasn't bothered to look at anyone's work but their own!!! This artform is OVER several thousand years old!!! IT'S ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE YOU! There is very little "new" out there!"
Here is a link with great info about this topic:
http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/...Patterns.shtml
All I can ask is that the artists on this forum kindly and respectfully help educate the less worldly of our artistic glass-beadmaker-brethren so we can stop wasting our time fighting one another over this BS. "