*Puts on the Mod Hat*
Hello, everyone.

In light of recent events, the community moderators would like to make something clear:

We are not the copyright/trademark/patent police. Neither are you.

As you might guess, this post has been prompted by recent activity: members accusing other members of having borrowed too liberally from electradesigns modesty panel design.

The corsetmakers mods have been in touch with Alexis, the owner of Electra Designs, and she has assured us that she is maintaining an eye on the community posts and, if she has an issue with someone's work as a possible infringement of her patent, she will take it up with that person.

There has been some confusion over the fact that Alexis has released an older version of her modesty panel design for personal use. That older design is not the one with patent-pending status. Us mods are working on putting together a simple, side-by-side comparison web page (which will be linked-to from here, of course) for people's reference, as we're all about clearing up confusion. :)

In the meantime, we would very much appreciate it if the well-meaning corsetry members who have taken it upon themselves to speak up on Alexis' behalf stop doing so in a public forum. If you want to bring something to her attention, you can find her email address on her profile page.

The corsetmakers 'it's between the (presumed) infringer and infriged-upon' policy applies to all trademarks/copyrights/patents, etc. Even if you're a lawyer specializing in such things and in the mood to dispense free advice, please keep all such correspondence private and away from the community as much as possible.

"Corsetry Vigilantes" (wouldn't that be a heck of a superhero costume concept?) will not be tolerated on the community. We understand that most of them mean well, but all too often, those well-meant actions have brought out the worst in the community membership and often aggravate a situation, rather than improving it. From this point forward, we're adopting a 'warning on the first offence, banning on the second' policy - just like we do for the 'play nicely' rule.

On a related note, if you wish to ask us mods to remove someone's post for legal reasons - such as a violation of intellectual property of which you are the owner - please contact us privately via corsetmakers (at)gmail(dot)com and we'll work things out.

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New Tags!

In much lighter news, you might have noticed that the tags list has been updated recently. We have updated the tags to include references to specific sewing patterns, such as Laughing Moon 100, etc. The mods have gone through all posts with the 'patterns' tag, and added a pattern-specific tag to them, too. (Going through the untagged archives is going to take a while and is a work-in-progress) From now on, if you create a pattern-relevant post, please use both the pattern tag and the pattern specific tag, so that members can find your entry when browsing for general and specific information. Thanks!

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New Email Address!

Because it bears repeating, you can now reach all three corsetmakers maintainers via one email address: corsetmakers(at)gmail(dot)com - the community profile has been updated with this information.