Some of you know I do bobbin lace. Recently, a member in a lace group I’m in posted this absolutely beautiful wall hanging. I realized it was the type of lace that I could do, and asked if the pattern was available. Matter of fact, lots of people asked about the pattern. We were all directed to the webpage of the woman who had created it.

Unfortunately, that page has been inactive for years. Direct messages and google searches got no responses. There doesn’t appear to be anyway to now get that pattern. Whether the person who created it has passed away or is simply no longer interested in lace, there’s no way to know.

That got me thinking about the ethics around things we create. In this particular case, it’s possible that some of the people who have made that pattern might be willing to pass a copy on. But would that be right?

I think about books. We spend so much time writing them and publishing them and they then exist out there in the world. Matter of fact, I can’t even get rid of old versions with awful covers. With the publishing world the way it is now, copies will never be exhausted and I presume my estate/heirs might continue making a few dollars a month without me.

Obviously it’s unethical to make copies of whatever a person creates, without the creator’s permission. Whether that’s books, music, paintings, or lace patterns. And equally obvious, at some point creativity passes to the public domain and then it’s okay to print, download, use, etc.

But what happens when it’s something like this lace pattern? When it’s not in public domain but the person who created it no longer is actively involved in allowing the pattern to be purchased or used? To my way of thinking the same ethics still hold. Until the creator releases their interest in whatever the item is, their wishes are still paramount. Thinking of books again, just because I quit writing doesn’t mean my books are then released for free out into the wild.

There are a lot of people who want that lace pattern. And there are a lot of people who have it. What would I say if someone offered me a copy? My overly-developed guilty conscious would have to turn it down because I know nothing about where the creator is now. If she’d passed away, even then I think I’d want to contact the family and see if they were okay with sharing her work.

Coming again from the background of writing, if someone offered to sell their copy of my book to another, it would bug me. If someone offered to give their copy to another, I would love the idea that my books were being shared and passed on. So maybe it’s money that makes such sharing unethical.

Honestly, if someone offered to give me a copy of that pattern, my guilt might be quiet. Maybe. I don’t know.

It was a beautiful work of art though.