This story appears in the
November 2000 issue of
Entrepreneur.
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The Bible, not to mention Pete Seeger in "Turn, Turn,
Turn," says that "to everything there is a season. a time
to be born, and a time to die...a time to weep, and a time to
laugh...a time to rend, and a time to sew..."
Or is that a time to sue? Using the Net and e-mail, hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of hobbyists are sharing copyrighted sewing
patterns among themselves, denying profits to the companies that
created the designs. Certain cross-stitch pattern entrepreneurs
believe these down-loaders had better pay up. As lawyers for rock
band Metallica duke it out with Napster, Jim Hedgepath, president
of Pegasus Originals, is ready for a legal battle of his own.
It's easy to joke about suing grannies who filch $5 to $8
patterns, but Hedge-path isn't laughing. Pointing out that most
nefarious needlepointers are under 55, he says 70 percent of the
retail stores that existed 10 years ago are gone. "[Pattern
sharing] isn't the [entire] problem, but it's a big part of
it," says Hedgepath, who has seen his pattern sales fall 40
percent, or $200,000, in the past three years.
The International Needlework Retailers Guild and the Hobby
Industry Association of America have joined Hedgepath and a small
band of cross-stitch companies in feeding money into a growing
legal fund. Vows Hedgepath, "Some of the people starting these
groups and posting these patterns on their Web sites are going to
go to jail for it."