The final sign of being known?
March 1st, 2008 by Lady Periphaeria I have just got the questionable honour to report my first copyright infringement to a $SERVICE_PROVIDER. Does this mean that I am famous now?
I knew, when getting into designing, that there will be people who will steal from me like that, people who won’t respect my right to my intellectual property as I know there are designers who are so plagued by this phenomenon that they use most of their days reporting infringements and not doing what they are good at and what they love: design.
If you purchase my designs, never share them with anyone and respect my copyrights I thank you. If you have the mental spine to preach for the artist’s right for their creation, I am more than thankful, as the world needs you, us, needlework designers need you to help us to spread the knowledge.
If you purchase my designs and “share” them, or if you only stitch my designs without paying a dime of the think of this: would you steal the fabric and floss you use? No, because it’s a crime, as much of a crime as is stealing the pattern, stealing those few cents from the artist who created the design you love to stitch.
To end this with a funny anecdote: Guess was I amazed when I read the latest The Gift of Stitching and noticed that Helga Mandl’s design published in the magazine uses exactly same clover than a design combo I have designed a while ago and which I am currently model stitching for St. Patrick’s Day? 
Great minds think alike, it seems and I had to send a courtesy email to Helga right away, just in case there won’t be questions of imitation. (In this case it’s fortunate that motifs, like clovers, can’t be copyrighted as such, only the final design.)
Yes, I am publishing a set of St. Patrick’s Day’s designs soon! 
I am both saddened and disgusted by the fact that someone has already violated your copyright. Unfortunately, downloadable designs are that much easier to copy and make available to others. I hope that this won’t become a pattern.
I knew it would happen sooner or later – fortunately the staff of the site they were at removed the files promptly.
Already?? That’s truly sad
I’ve been toying with the idea of putting together a large enough design to be non-free, but it’s things like this that make it hard to put forth the effort.