Hey everyone! And @Leaders
I was browsing Pinterest the other day and came across a cute crocheted image. Couldn’t find the pattern so I made it myself. Can I put that on my shop or post my pattern if it’s based off one that already exists?
If it didn’t have a pattern, then no. But pintrest is iffy when it comes to stolen work so I’d make the pattern but if someone reached out and said it was their work/design, I’d apologize and take it down if they wanted it too. Or give them credit for inpso if the pattern is not the same.
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Okay, I guess I’m worried it’ll be marked as stolen and my shop will get taken down!
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i think but make different photo
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This is the image I’m working off so if anyone could maybe help find me a pattern? I’ve already finished the hat and I’m halfway on the bunny. I want to make sure they aren’t the same if there is a posted pattern.
I’m sharing this so that if I do post on my shop, it’ll be my own pictures. That people can keep me accountable!
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That’s so cute!
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I know! I have the hat done and I feel like it looks similar, but not the same! Working on the bunny and same thing.
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even if the pattern is your own, it’s still not your own original idea to make a bunny in a hat, so that’s still stealing someone’s idea. Thank you for asking the community and not assuming!
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No, this wouldn’t generally be considered “stealing” in the usual craft or copyright sense. A simple bunny in a magician’s hat made from basic shapes is a very generic concept, not a protected design.
What is protected is someone’s specific pattern or instructions, since that written pattern is their original work. So if you were copying a pattern directly without permission, that would be the issue, but recreating a similar idea from a single reference image is typically considered inspiration rather than theft.
This would be similar to someone getting upset that someone else had a bee or a leggy frog pattern. They don’t own the concept of the bee or the leggy frog, but they do own their pattern.
Ethically, I wouldn’t make it a 1:1 replica of the original… I would add your own flare to it for sure and treat it more as an inspiration piece rather than trying to recreate it as a whole. This way you avoid stepping on anyone’s toes.
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I think there’s a bit of a mix up here between ideas and how they’re expressed in practice. In general, ideas themselves (like “a bunny in a hat”) aren’t owned or protected. What’s protected is a specific expression of that idea, such as a particular pattern, design details, or a recognizable character.
If ideas alone were owned, we wouldn’t have thousands of different crochet versions of the same basic concepts (bees, frogs, cats, bunnies, etc.), because those are all shared ideas interpreted differently by individual makers.
So creating your own pattern for a bunny in a hat wouldn’t be considered “stealing someone’s idea” it would be your own expression of a common concept. The concern would only come in if someone was copying a specific pattern or very distinctive design elements from another artist’s work.
For example, just to simplify:
Disney owns their specific versions of Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella as characters (their names, designs, and specific depictions).
But Disney does not own general ideas like “a bear in a red shirt” or “a princess with blonde hair,” because those are just broad concepts that many different characters can share.
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Okay, I’m wanting to make it similar, but the hat brim is wider, the bunny will, have different ears and it’ll have legs and arms. Thank you! This is helpful!
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oh yeah, i had same question to that 
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Okay, thank you! 
It is probably the one I saw on Pinterest. But then I wonder, is it already stolen or just an inspo pic? 
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it’s still stolen. please do not base your ideas off of any drawings, other crochet things, or copyrighted material. you always have to have permission, and with a pattern already in place, it’s not likely for permission to be given.
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Even if someone stole their photo to use on Pinterest that doesn’t make it okay to steal it yourself. And we don’t know if the poster on Pinterest is the designer or not. It would still be making a pattern heavily based off of a paid pattern, potentially taking sales away from the original creator and profitting off of it.
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No, as long as you aren’t editing the original pattern
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Thanks guys! I won’t post this pattern on my shop or nowhere, that’s you @lulovescrochet for finding that on Etsy. I just avoided a major mess up thanks to you all! 
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I don’t know too much about these kinds of things, but I do know that the general idea of a bunny in a magician’s hat is an incredibly common concept. I think the way it’d be copyright is if you’re entirely basing your design on the inspo pic, because if you’re just trying to make the bunny and hat identical to the picture and then selling that pattern, that’s not legal, but if you make the bunny with your own unique design I think it’d be fine. Especially since the image that even I personally think of with a “magician’s hat” looks exactly like that hat, I just think you can’t try to replicate that picture.
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I think a couple of different things are getting mixed together here.
The main question is how you’re planning to design this plush?
There are quite a few blanket statements being thrown around that I think can make things more confusing for others, particularly around using something as inspiration.
If you’re taking that image and making a pattern with your own interpretation of it, that is generally considered fine in crafting communities.
The part that would be a problem is copying or closely recreating a paid pattern or a clearly distinctive design without permission.
Using images, drawings, or other crochet makes as inspiration to develop your own pattern is a very common part of the creative process in crafting.
For example, I recently worked on a dragon design and couldn’t decide how to shape the feet, so I looked at other crochet dragons just to see different approaches. I took inspiration from what I saw and developed my own version. That’s inspiration and research, not copying… and far from stealing.
I think part of the confusion here is coming from treating all reference based inspiration as something that requires explicit permission, which isn’t really how creative work functions in practice. Ideas and designs don’t come from nowhere they’re always influenced by something that came before. Creation and artistic expression doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
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