Can I sell stuff I make from a tutorial or kit? The simple answer is no. When I first started crafting and thinking about selling what I made, I thought that I could sell anything I made, even if it was an item made from a magazine or a book. I'm not sure where I read it but a few years ago I learned that selling other people's designs, even if they are made by my hand, is a copyright infringement. That concept made me nervous about what I could sell and what I could give away. What is the point of making stuff I can't sell? The obvious answer is that I need to make things I can learn from before I can start selling things. I like the idea of trying a technique and selling that attempt instead of leaving it sitting around my place taking up room. The reality is that my first attempt at a technique is rarely good enough to be sold, despite how proud I am to have made the item. I just need to accept that everything I make is not amazing. That is why the term "learning curve" exists. I need to take time to perfect a technique so it doesn't look like an amateur made it before I try to sell it. There are some markets that like the look of a fun item made by amateurs, but that is the point of funky and colorful items. I can think of many clay necklaces I think look like they were made by children as an example. Just like putting in the time to research the market before starting you Etsy shop, artisans need to take time to perfect techniques before they can sell their products. Trying to sell beadwoven necklaces with gaps and thread showing is unprofessional and will get bad reviews. Selling jewelry that has wires poking the wearer is just bad business. That is why designers create magazine or YouTube tutorials or sell classes. They give us a template to practice a technique, not a step by step of how to create a new line for someone's store.
I was looking through my old magazines and found an article on designer copyrights in the February 2013 issue of Bead & Button. It explains that designers who create books or make tutorials for magazines often make their living from selling tutorials or teaching classes on their special designs as well as possibly selling their design at their store. Selling a product from their tutorial puts you in direct competition with them, possibly denying them the income they need as their livelihood. The people reading the tutorial are welcome to create the item for ourselves or as gifts to friends or family but are not allowed to make money from their designs. One of the artists said that trying to sell other people's designs as our own not only hurts the designer who spent hours figuring out the perfect combination of techniques and color but also the seller. Not only can it cause you to get your Etsy shop shut down, it also stunts you as an artisan. If you spend all your time creating other people's designs, you will never learn to create your own designs and style. The entire point of being an artist is to find your own voice and make art that is inside you. Copying designs that other people created is a great place to start but eventually everyone needs to try their own wings to create their own voice. I'm still in the learning phase but I can't wait until I can combine my knowledge and preferences to create gorgeous art that shows the world who I am (and to make money doing it!).
Etsy says that any items properly reported as copyright infringement will be taken down. Too many infringement accusations and they may close your store. (Here is their legal jargon that says how they react to infringement but are very vague on what is infringement in art.) Here is an article in their site as to what is copyright but it too is mainly jargon that defines a copyright and how it can apply to art but is hard to prove. Again, this article is not very useful to me since I am a very literal person. The magazine article was more useful than the Etsy article. To be fair, Etsy has to deal with items as diverse as t-shirts to craft supplies to chairs while the Bead & Button magazine is specifically for jewelry makers. I did find an article in Etsy's Seller's Handbook blog that has an example and a few FAQs about copyright infringement that was more helpful. Like the magazine article, this handbook blog post highly recommends that a seller use their own images and ideas on their products and it will improve their sales.
Lisa Pavelka, a well-known polymer clay artist who also has an amazing line of tools for polymer clay creators, wrote this article about her take on inspiration versus copying. She basically says that no idea is new, that something or a group of somethings always inspires everything. She says that that she thinks it is pointless for teachers to teach, or sell tutorials, of techniques the students are not allowed to reproduce. The point of every creator should be to take what they learned and do it a different way, to change the technique or design into a unique and original product or technique. I may be paraphrasing her to the point of misquoting her, but it was a really interesting article I suggest you read.
In Summary
If you watch or read a tutorial or use a kit, you are not supposed to recreate and sell the item described there. You can reproduce an item for your own jewelry collection or as a gift, but you cannot make money from a design created by someone else. Anything you sell must be your own design or you can be forced to remove it and pay a fine, depending on who you copied.
So work hard at perfecting your techniques and use examples to learn on but only sell the items you've designed yourself!
