Someone brought up recently that it might not be legal to sell items made from commercial sewing patterns. Do any of you know anything about this?
All patterns are copyrighted, its up to the company what you are allowed to do with it though. The big three are for private use only, you are not allowed to use their patterns for commercial use, ie items to sell. A lot of the smaller companies that do ren garb patterns are more forgiving, both Alter Years and Margo Anderson allow their patterns be used for commercial custom garb or singular pieces of garb for sale, but no mass reproducing of any one item. If you wanted to mass produce items from any of these patterns you're supposed to contact the companies and pay a licensing fee for using their patterns commercially. If you look carefully on the patterns you can find somewhere the copyright rules for each one. Hope that wasn't too confusing.
Lorraine, you hit the nail on the head.
Okay, thanks.
Yup, Lorraine pretty much covered it.
I know for a fact the big 3 have it printed on their envelopes that the finished product cannot be used for any commercial use. I believe it is under the little fold
ETA: I just looked at the pattern of a simplicity and it is just below the opening "To be used for individual private home use only and not for commercial or manufacturing purposes."
With the big companies (Simplicity, McCalls group, New look... ) technically you are supposed to use a new copy of the pattern for each new person you make it for... So if I'm making five bridesmaids gowns, each one should use a new copy of the pattern. However, the companies realize this is never going to happen, so don't worry about it too much.
I have often drafted my own patterns for, Chemises, Shirts Corsets, and Bodices that I use. That way, I can adapt them for various sizes to fit more people.
When on eBay, I often see many vendors using the big 3 patterns for the stuff they sell. I can often tell what pattern it is that they are using.