Etcetera

What is a “Trunk Show”? I have seen a number of ads for them lately. The first time I heard it was from someone who is a tax dodger, so I have this impression that trunk shows are when people who do not have stores sell things in person but do not have the proper paperwork to legally sell things retail. I suspect that my understanding of “trunk show” has been colored by the first person to use it in my experience.

Related to this tax issue is something else that comes up frequently, the idea of sharing patterns. Generally I do not think it is right to scan in pages from a book and send a copy to several friends. But I frequently scan in pages from a book and print them out for my own use. I do this with library books too, because the library would be outraged if I needed to tick off lines in a chart on their copy. I also do not have a problem lending my knitting books to other people (except when they live far away and the shipping is prohibitive) they probably photocopy pages for their own use. Even though that is functionally the same as me sending them a photocopy of the pattern, I really do think of it as an important difference.

Part of why I have never  bought a downloadable pattern is because they all say it is non-transferrable. I think it should be treated like a book. If I buy a book of patterns and knit something from the book but decide I will not knit any of those patterns again, I can give the book away and someone else can make things from it. (There is a bit of gray area if I retain my personal photocopies of a pattern, but assume I destroyed those for the sake of the argument.) If I download a pdf and make that pattern, then I send the pdf to a friend and delete my copy, that should be reasonable. The information is not in two places at once, so I am treating it like a book. But the pattern designers see that as me depriving them of income and say that is wrong. I am willing to abide by their rules, but I do so by keeping my money. 

There are a lot of people selling things on Etsy who do not have the licenses and who do not report income to the IRS. The ironic part of this is these sellers are frequently more expensive than legitimate businesses. Because a legitimate business gets shipping discounts, they can buy wholesale, and all their business expenses are tax deductible but sales taxes are 100% passed on to the customer. I wonder how many of these people who are not paying their share tax-wise are the same people who think I would be a thief if I sent a downloaded pattern to a friend when I was done with it.