Dakota Collectables Lic (Personal use ONLY)

[jimrockford]

read this court ruling. US Court of Appeals ruled that that Dakota as well as other companies, "Do not include the power to control a purchaser's subsequent disposition of the purchased copy".

http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/06/08/053309P.pdf

[Theresa S.]

This is a very interesting and thought provoking thread. I read the opinion Jim attached as well as this whole thread.

What the opinion tells me is that If I had bought one of those memory cards, the party I bought it from does not have any control if I rent it out. It only discusses those specific memory cards and it also says, the opinion supports the defendant due to the fact Acton had not applied for copyright for those cards as computer programs before begining the lawsuit.

IMHO, the opinion could potentially support other users of other embroidery design cards...IF, they had not applied for copyright of the files on those cards, and, potentially, embroidery designs on other media as well (for example, diskettes, CDs, or even data tapes).

Dakota (and others)1)do not use this type card and 2) do copyright their designs; I'm looking at their catalog right now. There is an antipiracy statement, legal notice, and detailed discussion of their software license taking up a whole page in their main catalog. The license says we can stitch out and sell resulting embroidered design, but not copy and sell a software copy of the design - that is, the software file itself.

As far as I can see, copying copyrighted material, whether it is embroidery designs, music, movies or any other copyrighted material...is piracy and illegal.

and...that is my last 2cents worth.

have a great weekend, everyone.

[TN Thom]

I too got the Happy Bunny and a few more licensed product offers from Dakota. All of them stated for personal use only on the flyers that I received.

I emaled Dakota and told them that I owned an embroidery business and had no use for Licensed Prodcuts that could not be sown out and sold for profit. I asked them to remove my business name from their mailing list so that I would not get further Licensed Procuts.

To date, I have not received any more Liscensed Products flyers from Dakota but do still receive their flyers announcing their own designs that I can sew out and sell.

[randyhb]

the court says you can do what you want with the designs you buy... read these court cases

court case #1

court case #2

[signman]

I think you have mis-interpreted the court cases...no where in them do I find a statement from the court that you can 'do what you want with the designs'...
case #1 is pertaining to JURISDICTION of the court only-a semantic seesaw battle between the lawyers-one claiming the case should be tried in their state, the other claiming it should be tried in the home state. No where does it get into 'what' the lawsuit is about other than brief mention of why Dakota is suing. In fact, here is the last sentence of the case : I. CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing reasons, the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED in part (Docket No. 5). The Plaintiff’s claims against defendant Barbara Geer are DISMISSED for lack of personal jurisdiction. The claims against defendant Grand Central Graphics, Inc. remain.

I'll repeat that...THE CLAIMS AGAINST DEFENDANT GRAND CENTRAL GRAPHICS, INC. REMAIN.
So the court has (at that point) NOT RULED on the copyright infringement, ONLY on the venue it should be heard in.

Court case #2 again, IS NOT ABOUT USING COPYRIGHTED DESIGNS...it is about 'renting' out the computer 'cards' containing the designs to other users of the same system. It goes into detail about the rights involved in the COMPUTER CARDS containing copyrighted artwork, but NOT the artwork itself. As the court points out-the plaintiff cannot properly sue BECAUSE THEY FAILED TO PROPERLY REGISTER THE COPYRIGHT ON THE DISKS.

So neither case, in any way, states that you can do what you want with copyrighted designs!
It has been upheld over and over in many forms-properly copyrighted artwork CANNOT be reproduced WITHOUT express permission by the copyright owner.
In the case of Dakota, the bulk of their artwork is sold to us for 'copyright free' embroidery use...but WE cannot 'sell' any of the 'digitized files' to anyone else to use-THEY are supposed to buy them from Dakota. You cannot make the claim (in a website, for example) that the artwork is 'yours'...that is assuming copyright ownership you do not have.

[Steve]

I have seen copies of burned CD's for sale online and have contacted Dakota via phone and email and they do nothing to stop the sale. One girl who answered the phone told me to call back later. I'm surprised they took the effort on this.