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I found this notice on the copyright page of something I bought at a recent used book sale. I can’t recall seeing a warning so overtly hostile to book borrowers and hope I never do again. I know about the first sale doctrine, and that this is completely unenforceable, but it still offends me. Should I contact the author for instructions on returning it unread?
I knit and crochet, and sometimes pattern writers will try to forbid people from selling the items made with their patterns, which is nonsense. The pattern itself is copyrighted, but not the item made with the pattern. I always find it vaguely annoying, and hope people don’t buy into it.
You can’t even copyright the pattern in the same way you can’t copyright recipes.
The web page or printed page the pattern is on can be copyrighted. Photos or drawings accompanying the pattern can be copyrighted. But, patterns cannot be copyrighted.
I don’t think that’s true, at least in the US. Patterns can be copyrighted, but since there are so many iterations of similar styles and patterns, it’s probably tough to enforce (not that I’ve ever tried.)
In the USA they definitely cannot be copyrighted. They can try to add on a license agreement but those have not been tested in court.
https://library.osu.edu/site/copyright/2014/07/14/patterns-and-copyright-protections/
The same thing happens with a lot of models for 3D printing.