INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

This is perhaps the most important post I’ll ever make, whether or not the most important and informative part of it is even written by me.

Deb Koch, owner of one of my favorite shops — Stitches ‘N Things in Fenton, Michigan — wrote about something immensely important (the necessity of stopping the Orphan Works bill now going through both the US Senate and the US House of Representatives) with as much passion and eloquence as I might. More importantly, she provided a very clear explanation of this complex issue. Rather than spend hours writing my own post on this, I simply asked Deb if I could reprint her words, with full credit to her as well as links to her site so you can see her original statement for yourselves.

So, with Deb’s permission, I am reprinting her cry for help here on INN in hopes of reaching and motivating even more stitchers to take action regarding this very, very important issue.

I BEG YOU TO HELP US SHOPS .. THE DESIGNERS .. THE NEEDLEART INDUSTRY! AND .. I NEED YOU TO DO THIS NOW !!

There are two bills being reviewed in the House and Senate as you read this. The bill numbers are H.R. 5889 and Senate Bill 2913. The organizations officially opposed to this legislation are the Craft & Hobby Assn., The National NeedleArts Assn., the Society of Decorative Painters, and a wide range of groups representing artists, designers, photographers, illustrators, and cartoonists.

To learn more about the harm the Orphan Works bills would cause our industry, click on this link.

To make it really easy for you to make your voice heard …

Contact your Senator in opposition to S.2913 NOW.

Contact your Congressman in opposition to H.R. 5889 NOW.

Because TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE … it would be better for you to CALL your representative or FAX them immediately. Don’t know who they are? Don’t know how to contact them? LOOK HERE …

Visit www.house.gov and find your House member’s email [Use the Find Your Representative by Zip link, OR the Write Your Representative link — both are in the upper left corner of the page]. SEND Him/Her an email today with these simple words:

Please vote against H.R. 5889 – it will destroy my art!

Visit www.senate.gov and find your Senate members’ emails [Choose your state using the drop down box in the top right corner of the page]. SEND them an email today with these simple words:

Please vote against S.2913 – it will destroy my art!

It is very important to CONTACT your representatives NOW and tell them you oppose this legislation!

And .. TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO DO THE SAME … TODAY!

WHY SHOULD YOU DO THIS??? This bill will directly impact YOU in that there will be FAR fewer charted designs, if any. It impacts me because I won’t be able to buy the designer’s works because why would the designer produce when their designs can be so easily taken? They won’t. This will really impacts the artists! It will impact me as a shop. It will impact you when you can no longer find new work to stitch.

Thank you so much for taking timeout of your day to read this and for taking the 2 MINUTES it will take to contact your Representative about this issue!

Don’t Let Congress Kill Creativity -
Help Stop the ORPHAN WORKS BILL -
ACT NOW

I can’t say what Deb has any better than she already has … But I will ask you to do one more thing if you have not already contacted both of your Senators (there are two for each state, so be sure to contact both of them!) and your Congressman …

Close your eyes and imagine a world in which there simply isn’t any new stash at all.

Think about how much we stitchers talk to each other (on YahooGroups, through blogs, on bulletin boards, etc.) specifically about new releases, and contemplate what will be left to talk about if there are no new releases. It really isn’t much of a stretch to think that much of our communication with each other will end because it will become more and more difficult for people to find out what a certain older chart that someone else is talking about looks like. Sure, we’ll still appreciate seeing other people’s work and trying to trade for their charts for a while … but it’s likely the communities we’ve built will slowly drift apart.

When there are no new charts to support the business, how will this affect the manufacturers who produce the items we need to stitch — the fabric, the hand-dyed fabric, the threads (cotton, silk, hand-dyed, etc.), the beads, the frames, and so on? It’s almost guaranteed that some of those manufacturers will go under in a world in which there are no new designs being produced.

Even if all the manufacturers are somehow still around, where will we purchase everything we need if the shops are going out of business?

Oh — clearly, there would be little to no reason for INN to continue to exist.

Okay, open your eyes.

It sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it? The scariest part is that there is a real potential for this nightmare to become a reality if we don’t act, and act quickly.

It literally takes only a few minutes to call your Senators and your Representative, or to email them, or to write them a letter which you then fax and/or mail (especially because you can copy/paste Deb’s message into an email or a document … and you can probably copy/paste your Senators’/Representative’s address into a document, too! ). Heck … why not spend all of ten minutes to do what I did: call, email, fax, AND mail them your thoughts on this issue?

Please, please, please … This is WAY too important to ignore, or to wait to attend to … so please take action now.

THANK YOU !!!