Provo Craft Issues Statement on MTC, SCAL Lawsuits

Provo Craft today issued a public statement in response to public outcry about its lawsuits against Makes The Cut and Craft Edge over their 3rd party software for Cricut machines.

As previously reported on Scrapbook Update, Provo Craft recently settled its ongoing lawsuit against Makes The Cut. Around the same time, the company filed suit against Craft Edge over their similar Sure Cuts A Lot software.

Consumer response to these lawsuits has been largely less than favorable to Provo Craft, but until now the company has not discussed the matter publicly due to the ongoing litigation in the two lawsuits. Today, however, the company finally issued a statement related to the lawsuits, saying that while it couldn't comment on specifics of the suits it hoped that "context will help our customers understand why we have taken these steps, and why we believe we are acting in both a fair and ethical manner."

The company's position can largely be summed up in a single paragraph from the statement:

As we have invented Cricut products, we have been granted copyright and trademark rights that protect us from, among other things, any company that unlawfully circumvents or ‘hacks’ our security measures for its own financial gain.  We regret that exercising our legal right to protect ourselves from such activity would give any of our customers a reason to be upset with us.  But we also believe that provided the facts, reasonable people will understand that the steps we have taken are legitimate and fair by virtually any standard of law and ethics.

Provo Craft also alluded to the possible fact that it will use the development of Cricut Craft Room in the future to potentially replace the functionality that is being lost by the customers of the 3rd party software companies that it has sued:

...we know that some of our customers want the ability to cut with their Cricut certain images that are not available in the Cricut library.  Many of you know that in April we are releasing the first version of Cricut Craft Room, which is an all-new, free, online design platform for Cricut.  Though this specific feature won’t be available initially, we intend to provide our customers the ability to cut some of their own images in Cricut Craft Room in the future.  Like our customers, we’re passionate about creativity, and we’re committed to providing great products for the crafting community.