A new quilting podcast has launched recently. Called Just Wanna Quilt the show is described as a “research podcast” and is produced by Elizabeth Townsend Gard, a law professor at Tulane University who studies intellectual property. Townsend Gard opens each episode by saying, “We explore all kinds of things. Stories about quilting, tools, field trips, maybe some famous quilters stop by and, of course, a little bit of copyright thrown in just for fun.” She’s published 49 episodes since launching on January 31, interviewing everyone from the public relations manager at Quilts Inc., to leaders of fabric and thread companies, designers, teachers, and hobby quilters.
The long-term goal for the project is to create two bodies of work about intellectual property as it relates to quilting, although she’s not sure at this time whether they will be books or websites but it was only available in property press online only. The first will be intended for the hobby quilter. It will include “everything you need to know about copyright and intellectual property when it comes to quilting. Just simple. So that we can get everyone on the same page on things they don’t understand.” The other will be a more in-depth work for people in the quilting industry. “Every single person in this field is using materials and you should feel confident in what you do with them so that you don’t get in trouble, or if you get in trouble you do it deliberately,” she says.
The show is mostly unedited with beeps of recording equipment, coughs, volume variations, and verbal stops and starts of both interviewer and subject left in. Townsend Gard says the audio is left rough on purpose. “For me, I’m a scholar and I want [the show] to reflect that these are our research notes.”
“The podcast is fun because who does a podcast?” she laughs. “What kind of academic does a podcast?” Her entrepreneurship class is using the show as a kind of living laboratory. “The podcast is our canvas to sort of play,” she says. They’ve investigated how to record and publish the show, how to analyze download numbers, and how to run an online contest, among other topics.
Unlike an official podcast created by a university, such as the Harvard Business Review podcast, Just Wanna Quilt belongs to Townsend Gard. “If I go to another university I take this project with me. I happen to be at Tulane and they are funding my research, but I own the intellectual property,” she says. Still, she acknowledges that the university is having an ongoing discussion about podcasting and whether a show represents one scholar’s research or the university as a brand.
When Townsend Gard began reaching out to possible guests asking if she could interview them about copyright and quilting, she says she was met with resistance. “They’d be like, ‘No, I don’t know anything about it and if I do I’m not talking to you,’” she recalls. So she changed tactics and instead asks to talk about their quilting lives. She tries to spend the last fifteen minutes of each episode focused on intellectual property. “I’m kinda like a doctor. As they talk I can kinda know what’s going on with them. Like how aware they are of what they’re doing,” she says.
I spoke with two people who have been guests on the show and although they knew that Townsend Gard is a law professor and that the project was about copyright law, neither was completely clear as to what the interviews would eventually result in beyond the podcast.
The podcast interviews are not being transcribed. There are just brief show notes on the Just Wanna Quilt website describing what each interview is about. “It’s kinda background information for the project so transcribing is not really needed,” she says. “I don’t think we’re pulling from the interviews per se.”
Townsend Gard writes law review articles each year as part of her professorship. This year she’s considering writing about quilting including whether it’s possible to copyright polka dots and whether rulers can be patented. She says these articles will be available to the public for free as PDFs. “We’ll put them everywhere,” she says. “Academics don’t really care about distribution.”
Academic books are typically expensive in comparison to mass-market titles. Townsend Gard’s book about the video game industry, Video Games and the Law, is 98 pages and costs $45.73. Townsend Gard says she’s hoping to make the new research more affordable. One of her other projects, titled (Il)legal, focuses on outsider art such as graffiti and tattoos. She says that book will be available on Amazon for .99 or $9.99 “or whatever the lowest price is for art books and we’re going to learn about that.”
There’s no set timeline for the Just Wanna Quilt project, although Townsend Gard says she’ll start writing in May. The podcast interviews will likely continue through the summer and fall, possibly longer. “I don’t really care about an end date,” she says. “The glory of being a full professor is I don’t have to figure it all out. Nobody is judging me and I can just keep writing. That’s my obligation, to write and to teach, and as long as I’m doing that nobody cares.”
Amazing! Abbey, you find the most intersting stuff. Thank you!!!
How interesting!
I like the idea of this as there’s is so much misinformation out there, with quilters basically giving legal advice when they really shouldn’t be. However, I think it’s important to note that this podcast is about AMERICAN intellectual property.
Many US quilters assume that if they’re following US law then they’re good to go everywhere, which is not the case. The web has made it possible to sell patterns globally, and what might be OK in one country can then get you into hot water in another. I think it’s important to be mindful of this.
I’ve listened to a few episodes and it sounds like Elizabeth is getting an in depth edcuation about this industry along with the rest of her listeners.. I often hear people say that this is such a nice kind industry. BS, it is very cutthroat. Those of us with disposable income go out and buy fabric, take expensive classes and travel for retreats and shows. The reality is a very different. The whole issue of intelectual property in the fabric business is just the tip of the iceberg. I am enjoying the journey (although at times I find myself cringing, but thats life) and look forward to the outcome of this research project.
This subject is interesting to me and I’d like to learn more. When I clicked on the link you provided, there were 50 some hours of podcasts, hopefully someone can point to me the best ones to answer my questions.
I once came upon a blog where 2 quilters were squabbling over their ‘copyrighted’ pattern of a square in a square block pattern, which had me a bit confused. Why should/could something so simple (and been around so long) be copyrighted? I thought that in order to get a copyright on something, it had to be something novel/unusual/distinct? None of which applied to either’s pattern. (For what its worth, I’d been using ‘their’ pattern since making my first quilt in 1984 (no internet then, few useful books). I doubt either one had been quilting that long) Patterns for making S in a S are everywhere, in books and online these days.
My grandmother had cardboard templates that she traced around to make the block and I found them when after she died and we were selling her house in the mid 70s. These bloggers were threatening legal action against each other. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had been in a room together that punches would have been thrown. (Then they’d have a reason for legal action)
But were exactly is the line drawn? If someone makes a quilt with a popular block and decides to put a red fabric in one corner and I one day decide to make a quilt from that same block and I be so bold as to put a red fabric in that same corner, could that particular quilter accuse me of copying her quilt? How could she/he prove that I’d ever actually seen her quilt?
I know there are left brained people and there are right brained people and I know there are many people who say they can not make a quilt without a pattern that someone else has provided. In my opinion, they just haven’t tried yet. It’s sewing, not rocket science. I believe nearly any one can make a quilt without a pattern. If they can do simple math “+ and x” and know what a quarter inch is, they can make a quilt. Think you can’t? Contact me, I’ll show you. No fancy rulers needed, although there may be be some graph paper needed and some ‘unfancy’ templates made out of cereal boxes…. (At least until you get the hang of it)
If the quilters who are making these accusations are so incensed that someone could copy them, why are they flaunting their work? If you don’t want someone to copy your efforts, then keep your work private. Get it to an appraiser and get it’s value on a dated document. Kinda sounds to me that they want the public adulation, “Look at me! I am the only person in the world that can do this” They want it both ways, they want it all.
I get it, most people want and should get the credit/praise for their work, but by putting their work out there, it’s most likely going to inspire some other person and that inspiration may hit closer than they want.
Good on you Cathy. I’m a self taught quilter . If I buy a quilt magazine and make a quilt from the magazine
it’s my OWN BUSINESS what I choose do with said quilt.
Fabric/pattern “designers” wants us to believe that when we buy their products
it somehow still belongs to, them, the designer and they have a say in what we can or
cannot do with the fabrics and patterns. Complete and utter BS
Apart from all the crap that’s available to us today crap we are led to believe we cannot make a quilt without
there isn’t anything really new in quilt block designs. Patchwork and quilting has been around since Adam was a lad.
The quilting business is worth billions to the US economy (I do not live in the USA) and of course everyone
involved in the quilt business want to get on that gravy train.
Designers should be aware if they carry on too much about “their copyright and intellectual property”
it will be very easy to soften their cough by hitting them where it hurts in their bank balance.
If you get an architect to design a house pay him/her for the design
You pay all the bills to bring YOUR HOUSE to completion
Some years later you decide to sell the house the architect tells you -you cannot sell your house as it was his design.
Chaos would reign.
Next we’ll have chefs telling us, you may buy our books but you cannot cook any of the recipes.
I think the inhumane conditions in which batiks are produce should give more cause for concern to designers
and manufacturers because the conditions under which this fabric is produced is horrific and would not be tolerated
anywhere in the western world. Now there’s a real lawsuit waiting to happen.
Cathy I agree with you 100% that if they want to protect their “designs” hide it away from the public gaze.
Have a look at the youtube video “Why Quilts matter and listen to what Karen Musgrave has to say about the world of quilting.
Thank you for your response Jan, you’ve given me some more to think about. I’ll look for the video soon.