Tim (Slowhike) brought it to my attention that some of you may be worried that we may be going against copyright policies and/or infringing on other manufacturers rights. Here is a copy of what Tim wrote to me.
"sewing projects...
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hey my friend, just wanted to touch base w/ you guys on something before anyone decides to say something about it in a less friendly way.
one HF member PMed me expressing a little concern that someone mite become unhappy if you guys were making anything that was a copy of what someone else had designed with out permission.
especially if you were making a profit off it.
my original thoughts were that your wife's offer to sew would help fill a void were some weren't willing to get into sewing and/or didn't have enough cash to buy some of the more expensive products being offered by companies.
and i still think that would be a great thing.
the only areas of concern i can think of right now are...
1)... maybe the cat tarps.
2)... there may have been mention of making a hennessy clone (but i'm not sure).
the ray way kit is being purchased from the source & you are just providing a sewing service for a fee. i see absolutely no thing wrong w/ that.
stuff sacks, etc should be no concern to anyone.
i don't think quilts shouldn't be a problem as long as you aren't copying a design being sold by someone else or using their name.
another thing mentioned was that if someone wasn't happy w/ a material, workmanship, or whatever, there could be hurt feelings over how it was handled since there are no company policies laid out like other makers have.
i just wanted to bring this to your attention before anyone else does.
i think a good way to make sure everything is good would be to talk about it on a new thread (maybe in the "hammock DIY" forum.
that way HF members (including manufacturers of course) would be able to give their opinions.
feel free to copy & paste this PM as a starter if you like.
i & others here really like you guys & appreciate your contributions here, so i'm just trying to diffuse what could turn into a less than desirable situation<g>. ...tim"
We never intended to hurt feelings, or steal someone elses designs, we just wanted to offer a sewing service. Most of what me make are just Cat Tarps. I didn't know that someone held a design patent on these. I know that Speers, MacCat, and JRB sell them, but is there something about that their designs that make them off limits? For the tarps we just sew 2 pieces of sil together, and then figure out what looks like a good curve. I looked at their designs and ours are different from all 3. For quilts we just sandwich insulation between 2 pieces of material.
At first I did say that we would sew a Claytor Clone, but then Stoikurt brought it to our attention that we would be going against Tom's design, so we abandoned it (plus, he can make it sheaper than we can). Most of what people have wanted from us suit their needs, and have differences from anything that they can buy. Please give your 2 cents, because the last thing we wanted was to offend anyone, or steal designs from people who have spent a lot of time and money devoloping them.
Also, If anyone ever has us do work for them and is dissatisfied, please let us know. WE WILL ALWAYS MAKE IT RIGHT!! If that means giving money back, or paying for shipping so that we can fix it, whatever. We sold a tarp that we had sewed the guy line reinforcements on different sides, and we sold it for basically the price of materials. The person we sold it to, already knew before hand that it had cosmetic flaws. We want to make people happy.
Thank you,
Dwight
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