copyright for crafters
question 16: I copied a single pattern out of a book and I want to distribute this copy. It’s less than 10% of the book, so that’s okay, isn’t it?
No.
Each individual pattern may be considered to be an independent work protected by copyright. The pattern book is a compilation (also protected by copyright) of individual patterns. Therefore, while you may have copied only a small portion of the entire book, you have still copied an entire copyrighted work and therefore may still be infringing copyright.
By the way, those “rules of thumb” about only copying 10% of a work to avoid copyright infringement are just that–rules of thumb. Infringement isn’t determined by simply computing the percentage of a work that is taken; it’s determined by the qualitative aspects of what was taken, as well.
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