It's a rare occasion when I watch the local news. Tonight they had a teaser about how a name is causing an uproar in local 'sewing' circles, while showing footage of a person knitting. The news team repeatedly referred to the 'sewing' story.
The actual story was about Sew Fast Sew Easy's lawyers are going after any groups using the title Sitch N Bitch. Yes they are even going after Debbie Stoller herself the author of Stitch N Bitch and Stitch N Bitch Nation.
I first heard about this on Franklin's knitting blog Panopticon.
Thegirlfromauntie who happens to be an intellectual property lawyer has been discussing this in her journal.
A little googling reveals that this was on Metafilter last May when the lawyers first sent out cease and desist letters to the Chicago SNB group. Stoller sent out a letter to the SNB groups at that time.
Marilyn The Knitting Curmudgeon weighs in on the subject. (Marilyn also has a link to Weeble and Bob one of my fave non-knitting sites for pie centric humor.) Kristi has quite a few comments in her Livejournal entry.
Found this page on the EFF site off of Marilyn's site. Something I should check out in detail.
Finally the official SFSE Boycott site Free to Stitch Free to Bitch. The Info link has a detailed timeline. Be sure to check out the Free to Stitch Free to Bitch Cafepress store.
What's my take?
The term Stitch and Bitch has been around for a long time. It's interesting how SFSE is sending out the lawyers now that knitting is big business. This is all about money. The knitting community a large is loyal and protective. I don't think I've ever read an unkind word about Debbie Stoller. SFSE are fools if they think this course of action is going to help their bottom line.
I tend to agree with Monkey Girl on this one.
Knit on.
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1 comment:
Interesting that Debbie's trademarks, which were filed before SFSE's, were rejected. I'm wondering what the justification was for that.
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