I wanted to touch base about what 8Bit Healey is up to. In January, we received a cease and desist on one of our products, which made me come to a screeching halt production wise and spend some time thinking and researching. I am very aware that by producing 8 bit quilts, I am ripping off the exact pixels of old school video games. I’m aware that my products are not original. But getting that notice of not being allowed to continue selling something, shocked me. Again, I know its not acceptable to defend oneself by saying, “By there are so man other sellers doing it.” So I pulled a lot of products off the site, because I wasn’t sure why that one specific product was targeted, but I wanted to consider if others were offenders as well. From the reading I did, sometimes its just the wording of a listing, maybe instead of calling it a “Pokemon custom My Little Pony” if I’d called it a “Pokemon inspired custom My Little Pony”, but I’m not even sure that’s the cure all. Just because you are claiming a copyrighted material inspired what you are making, still referring to a copyrighted product might be illegal. So I’m not sure I can avoid this happening still in the future.
I was still embarrassed and had some self doubt that goes along the lines of, “I’m not a real artist, I’m just stealing ideas from others.” But I’m hoping I’ll just push through this obstacle and still keep creating. I am going to try and put out a better mix of original creations and my 8bit loves. So here is what I’ve been sewing today:
Back in December, I made a birthday banner for my family and with the leftover fabric made a similar duplicate. I haven’t sewn the letters on yet, so I could put whatever the buyer wants. I think I’ll try to make a couple of these at with scraps if it does sell: So check out my Etsy Listing!
indigotravels 