Dear Ravelry－西西的筆記

Hello Ravelry, my name is Midori. I am one of Ravelry designers. I love designing original knitting patterns and enjoy seeing how people knit my patterns on Ravery.

They have great ideas yarn and color choices. Some of them take really beautiful pictures. I love seeing their project pages to find out various outcomes of my designs.

I also love checking other designer’s. There are so many creative people in your community.

And of course, I’ve encountered many beautiful yarns from all over the world, thanks to you.

Ravelry, you made my life much much happier one. And dear Ravelry, today I have a suggestion for you. A new business model for everyone who loves hand knittings.

This is a revolution for you, for designers, for People who love knitting, and also for those who love hand knitted items. It makes all of us much much happier.

What kind of system is it?

1. in this business model, Raverly designers get opportunities to get a license fee.

2. people who have good hands for knitting get opportunities to turn it into a job.

3. people who love Ravelry patterns but are not so good at knitting themselves
or have not enough time to knit will get an opportunity to find someone who will knit Ravelry pattern for them.

Let me tell you, why we need this new system. You probably have heard about Esty. It is very popular handmade shopping internet site.

I have very recently joined in Esty. I just made my account and started to look around to find very shocking items.

Many illegal copies of craft related item. Some people scan Japanese crafting books into PDF copies and sell them as e-books. Some shops have already sold over 1000 of such a copy.

It is of course against copyright law and hurts people who make wonderful handmade contents, slowly but surely.

I also found knitted items from Ravelry patterns were on sale.

You can only imagine how utterly shocked I was, to find my own pattern used in such matter. I have not given up my copyright and although it is clearly stated in all my designed patterns, the shop owner sells it without my permission.

Of course I am very sad and angry about it, but at the same time, I am also aware it is not realistic to wish to remove such people completely from internet community.

That is why I am approaching you today with a suggestion of new business model. I very much wish benefits everyone involved. We need a new system, which protects contents and designers from illegal copies. At the same time, it should also give people opportunities to sell and buy hand made items from patterns without violating each designer’s copyrights.

The system must work simply and easily.

I am very sure we can start this new system on Ravelry, because Ravelry has established itself as a nice community with many databases. I would like you to be the first to start introducing this simple yet effective business model.

How it works on Ravelry.

Designers can choose, whether nor not they give people permissions for selling items crafted from their works. Should they choose to give permission, it will be shown on each pattern pages.

People who wish to sell items should make a project page. They can also notify the possibility of order-made opportunity.

The price of items can be decided by people who knit the items. If you are very good knitter, you can sell bigger price, or you are just beginner, you can set a less expensive price. Each knitter can show their price on their project pages.

Using Raverly’s vast established system, people who want to buy items can see photos and price, then choose a person who will knit items.

When an item is purchased, both Ravelry and designer get fees, depending on its price accordingly.

So that’s it. My idea make everybody who loves knitting happy.

Some of us can even make knitting as a full time job. This will surely benefit yarn companies and shops, because hand knitting market will be bigger with this system.

Dear Ravelry, what do you say about my proposal?