As Sashiko gets popular, I receive many kinds of questions & requests. Please check this article for Sashiko Copyright on our stories and photos. As a summary, one may refer a photo and/or a story (caption) without for free with appropriatie citation. We do not give up the copyrights, though. If you are interested in using our photos and stories for commertial purpose, please contact us for the details.
Summary of Sashiko Copyright and Usage
- Contribution/Writing
- Commercial Purpose such as publication, part of the books, and/or product description: With Fee.
- Academic purpose: Maybe without fee.
- Interview on Zoom/Phone
- Commercial Purpose: Maybe without fee
- Academic purpose: Free of charge
- Using a photo of our Sashiko work & reposting
- Commercial Purpose: With Fee
- Non-Commercial Purpose: Free of charge with proper citation
Reposting our photos & Stories
Please feel free to use our photos & stories which I have already made them public on Instagram, Facebook, or on this website. We have not given up the copyright. Therefore, please use the proper citation to the origin of the photo (if it is from Instagram, put the account name to share where the photo/story is from). As far as the proper citation is done, there is no need to contact me.
If you would like to use our photos/captions for your business, please contact me first. Based on your intention & request, I may be able to offer something for free of charge.
Translating our Sashiko Stories
If you are willing to translate what I share, please feel free to do so with proper citation. I will not be responsible for te translation on your ends, but I am happy to communicate to the people outside of Japanese & English lanuguage.
Reasoning behind the Fees
You may wonder why I charge fees on writing, and not on Interview. It is the same “time” that I need to contribute. What I care here is “who will be responsible on publication”.
The contents, either writing, audio or video, will be the responsibility of interviewer based on what I was intereviewed on. I do not have any control to what the interviewer summarize. Therefore, the responsibility will not be mine. However, when I write/contribute to a publication, books, and other media, the “writing itself” will carry the responsibility for me to “write” what I really want to share. In order to make sure that I write what I need to write, I charge fee & will spend more time on writing. By charging fee, it is also okay for the author to change their mind. Often, because the general understanding of Sashiko may be different, I do not write what the author may be expecting me to write.
The category of “Maybe with Fee” is that I do not have a specific rule for this category. If you can offer me something besides monetary compensation, I am happy to consider that.
Please do basic research before asking
Basically speaking, it is my pleasure to share the photos & stories with other media and individuals. It is pretty much the whole purpose of what I do – to share the Sashiko we practice. However, unfortunately, in last 4 years of sharing Sashiko, I have had quite sad & painful experiences in this “Copyright and sharing”. There was an author who contacted me, asking me to write a section about Sashiko. I asked for the compensation, if not, taking the Sashiko Class so that we could be on the same page. The answer was “Oh, there are people who wish to ‘pay’ me to write for publicity. I will find someone else”. Well… that’s how sad the communication can be.
I am a human, so I may write for the purpose of publicity. However, I will never distort what I would like to share for the profit or publicity. I write what I need to write. If I write what I need to write for free of charge, then the author may just throw it away to the trash bin (if the contents of my contribution didn’t match to the author’s goal).
I share a lot of stories on SNS, this website, and Patreon. Please do basic research first before contacting me.
Please read the related article about this topic as well.
The article about Sashiko Contribution in writing (2019)