Cory Doctrow has written on BoingBoing about fabric that you can buy that comes with a license agreement. The license agreement states that anything made from the material cannot be sold commercially. It's silly, and it will only end up hurting the company in question, because crafters will not want to use the material in their products, or...crafters will just shrug and ignore the agreement, at which point, what as the company gained, except apparently some future grounds for a lawsuit, which will make them look silly if they actually do sue.
This is unfortunately nothing new. I know several crafters, and there have been different kinds of fabric that are "prohibited" from being used in commercial applications.
I understand that the fabric company is attempting to protect the pattern that is on the fabric, and somehow save their "intellectual property" but I believe they're taking it too far. As Cory points out, are we going to come to a point where you need to get a license agreement from your butcher when you buy a cut of meat because he has a special way of cutting the rib-eye that he wants to protect? Is your neighborhood plumber going to make you sign an NDA before he works on your house which prohibits you from examining his fix or from letting someone else touch it?
How far are we going to extend this notion of "property" to non-tangible items before we end up binding ourselves (literally and figuratively) in such a way that we can't make any forward progress as a culture?
What about the Mickey Mouse fabric you can buy at the local fabric store? I'm sure Disney doesn't want you making things to sell out of that fabric--they licensed it for personal use. And whereas Disney has the money to back up their copyright claim, this artist is just trying to make a living.
I agree, that instead of blanketly prohibiting the sale of items made with her fabric she should have asked people interested in using her fabric for commercial use to contact her to arrange licensing and permission, thereby giving herself a new business opportunity.