Crafters, if you copy someone's design that you've seen online you're not just a CF, you're a thief.

[ThingsBeingVarious]

I have a small, successful craft business and mostly sell online, which means there are loads of photographs of my work for anyone to see. Yet again I've just been made aware of someone copying my original design and selling the product - she probably thinks it's okay because she's raising money for her local charity. And sometimes my 'followers' and customers will send me a photo of the copy they've made saying I've 'inspired them'.

I know people often say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but it really fucks me off. People should think up their own designs, not scroll through Pinterest or Etsy or wherever looking for ideas to nick. Or if they haven't got any original ideas they can BUY patterns from other crafter's.

Reminds me of the time that I did a lot of Zentangle, and also cross stitch. I thought I had genuinely invented something by combing the two... Nope! It is called blackwork and has been around since medieval times!

Yeah. I’ve done black work

You are not being unreasonable at all, but good luck in trying to get people to understand the value of intellectual property. You see it everywhere, with tee shirt and poster/print makers flagrantly copying someone else's art and cutting them.out of the profits. Maybe you can hire a web designer/computer professional to help you figure out a way to display your designs yet make them very difficult to copy. Good luck.

Of course it’s not theft…. They’ve seen your design and then come up with their own pattern for it… it’s not like they’ve stolen your pattern.

But how do you know they are cheap imitations? Maybe copied and improved?
it’s normal in business - and healthy, otherwise there would only ever be Ford cars and Hoover vacuum cleaners.

You can not copyright an idea!

So copying something that is a physical item from a picture means it is legal. You are in breach of copyright if they use the original picture or steal and resell the physical or digital pattern. If they make a new pattern from an idea they got from a picture of something that is again legal.

However copyright is not automatic. The onus is on you to proof you made it first or properly file a copyright or patent.

I would also like to point out it is highly possible to come up with the same idea completely independently.

For example the periodic system of elements. 2 a scientists in different countries came up with almost the same at pretty much the same time.

However Edison was a thief, he stole the ideas of his employees and this is to this day being perpetrated by employers via an unethical contract. Those contracts state anything the employee comes up with during employment belongs to the employer. Pretty standard in science, and engineering. Similar contracts apply today to musicians as well. It’s exploitation of the creatives.

she so was 😂

There's nothing new under the sun

OP, I get it, even if quite a startling number of posters here don't seem to. You explained it very well and clearly here.

OBVIOUSLY the OP isn't complaining about those who copy her work as a one-off for personal use (well she might have been but has made it clear it's the CFs who are copying and then selling on that are the real objects of her ire). It's irritating if someone copies something slavishly that you made, even in 'homage' or as a gift for one person, but that does happen. I once made a gorgeous felt Christmas ornament (and yes, it was inspired by stuff I'd seen on Pinterest! but not directly copied, it was my own design that I'd drawn out a couple of times in rough) and put it on my personal FB, and promptly someone I knew made an EXACT copy in felt, down to the embroidery on it, as (I think) a teacher gift. She wasn't selling it but I had to explain to her that IF I'd ever felt like developing the design (which was mine, though not strikingly original) and selling it online or selling the pattern, then her photos all over FB, Twitter etc wouldn't help matters!

But clearly the OP is talking about an original design she's researched, experimented with, tweaked, changed and developed. These are all stages in designing something. If they're sidestepped by someone going to the end product and ripping it off, for a start you can normally tell as the finished item doesn't really look 'right' (maybe because the person ripping it off hadn't spent all that time developing it) but also, that CF is basically stealing all the time and skill and effort you spent in developing your item, as well as the look of the finished design!

I'm a crafter. I do a lot (knitting etc) for fun/pastimes but I do also design and make jewellery, and also decorative items in a medium I'm not naming because it's searchable! There is someone I know slightly in the immediate area who has made these for a lot longer than me. I always wanted to make them and started over the lockdown. I do now sell them in a very limited way. She's been quite prickly about it and turned up at a recent 'open house' thing and almost told me to stop it - despite our styles being very different (and modes of manufacture too - I take a lot of time on mine and she's said in the past she goes for the 'fast and furious' mode of production for her bread and butter pieces. It shows, but I suspect most customers don't notice or care. She can make 5 pieces for one or two of mine of comparable size, so my business plan is crap! 😂 ) Anyway, I try really really hard with this new 'line' of items to make them as different in details from those I see on Instagram etc. It's hard. Everyone makes these items in the following shapes (which sell) - hearts, birds, stars (god this is sounding properly naff!) so if I want to do those, I do try to make them different. It's a design challenge to keep different and keep flexible and ahead of the game, and that's something that a CF who rips things off just doesn't get.

The posters who are saying 'well if you post your things online to sell with photos, you only have yourself to blame' can get in the sea. It is WRONG to steal someone else's idea for profit. If you sell online it makes you very vulnerable, but that isn't an open invitation for CFs to rip you off.

More likely a registered design would be the most appropriate for of protection here. Possibly a patent, if there is anything really inventive, rather than just a distinctive appearance.

@ThingsBeingVarious
It is copyright infringement pure and simple.
You can't use any photo or even text you find online without prior permission from the owner.
People can and indeed are sued for it.
I used to get it a lot with my art, and I now use Copyscape (which is free to use) and it is plastered everywhere warning people, as I got sick of it.
You can also Google to DFMA, and have a notice sent to the perpetrator, and the content is removed and they receive a strike, with a notice so if you Google them that a page belonging to them has been taken down - highly embarrassing for them.

@NatM70 what does DFMA stand for? A google search says design for manufacturing and assembly, but I suspect that's not what you mean?

I'm so sorry!
Still on holiday mode (got back yesterday!).
It is DMCA.
Although it is American, it applies here too as Google is American.
If I Google a company who have stolen my text (one copied and pasted my whole terms and conditions!), they have a DMCA strike against them and people can see the page has been taken down.
It doesn't look good for them.
Use CopyScape too, it is usually enough to scare the lazy gits off.

Thank you! Copyscape and DCMA both look very powerful. Great to have something in our corner for once

You're very welcome.
The more we can scare them off the better.
Pure laziness.
And theft.

Forgot.
You can run any of your web pages through CopyScape and it will bring up any copies and show you any sites that have copied you.
Then you report it.