From CNN.com
Stolen stitches online rock needlepoint world
August 3, 2000 Web posted at: 1:28 PM EDT (1728 GMT)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- A stitch in time used to save nine. But bands of
underground grannies have started stealing stitches online, rocking the
genteel world of needlepoint and threatening to tie the industry in knots.
Their numbers are probably in the hundreds rather than the millions that
make up the Napster song-sharing community on the Web.
Yet the pattern publishing and needlepoint industry is so alarmed at the
mostly elderly cross-stitch pirates who swap copyright patterns for free
via the Internet that they are threatening to take legal action.
"This strikes at the heart of the needlepoint industry. The people who are
doing this seem to have a hacker's mentality," said Jo Weiss, executive
secretary of the International Needleart Retailers Guild.
"When we found out about it in July, we couldn't help but compare it to the
music industry and what is happening there ... If necessary, we will show
them that we mean business," Weiss said.
Using just a PC, a digital scanner and an Internet chat room, a group of
ladies discovered they could reproduce the charts filled with hundreds of
tiny squares that serve as patterns for cross-stitch designs and pass on
the grid to the computer of a friend.
The technology was not only quick but inexpensive, saving hobbyists
anything from $3 to $12 a time for patterns ranging from intricate floral
designs to dogs and angels.
The women call it sharing, comparing it to swapping recipes taken from
cookbooks or passing around novels. But when they advertised their skills
on various Web sites, needlework shops started to see sales fall.
"I found there are about 11 groups, some of them with several hundred
members. I signed up to one such group and within a few days I got sent so
many charts that I couldn't download my e-mail," said Jim Hedgepath,
president of South Carolina pattern designers Pegasus Originals who is
spearheading the crackdown.
"It is hurting the designers and it is hurting the store owners. It has
gotten to be a big enough problem that we are having to take action because
the industry has gotten smaller every year and we are at a point where we
could be knocked off by something like this," he said.
The industry, which has seen some 75 percent of its mom and pop stores go
out of business since the 1980s, launched a legal fighting fund after its
annual tradeshow last month.
Hedgepath has also written to several of the Web servers that host the
offending e-mail groups pointing out the copyright infringement and
succeeding in getting some of them closed down. Other have simply changed
names and gone underground, admitting new members only through personal
recommendation.
"Some of the groups are shutting down for fear of getting caught and I
think lots of the ladies didn't realize they were doing anything wrong. But
there are a few bad eggs out there," said Hedgepath.
He dismisses as "baloney" justification by the pirates that they have to
travel long distances to buy the patterns at needlework shops.
"There are plenty of places you can go to on the Internet and legitimately
download free stuff," he said, citing the proliferation of sites run by
craft magazines and official needlepoint organizations.
Hedgepath and Weiss say they will take legal action only as a last resort.
But some lawyers question the wisdom of taking expensive legal action
against a group of mostly elderly, not very rich women.
"Just filing an initial complaint and getting an injunction can cost tens
of thousands of dollars," said Los Angeles business and copyright lawyer
Robert Enders.
"Every time there is a new technology, it opens up fears of people losing
out, and then it settles in and people find they can usually make more
money doing something else," he said.
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