Good morning friends, fans, and followers 🙏 Recently a phony website has popped up claiming to sell PDF crochet patterns, all of which were ripped off and stolen from independent crochet artists. Right down to copying every word of the descriptions! I was one of the victims of this blatant theft, and in the past few weeks have been dealing with the fallout.
As many of you might now, this isn’t the first time my art has been stolen. Before, it was just the image, with a website making incredibly cheap and crappy knockoffs of my Elf Coat design and selling them with my image as the example. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had crowds of people either complaining to me about the knockoff (that I didn’t sell them) or creating a ton of extra work for me by having to answer the HUNDREDS of messages (very kindly) letting me know my work was being ripped off.
This time though, the theives have hit my actual market – pattern sales. PDF patterns are what keeps food on my table.
While the loss of income is worrying, the emotional blow was the first and worst part of this. Not only is it already a difficult time of year for me – my sales normally dip somewhat during the Holiday season – but I was trying to use the yearly lull in activity to take a digital vacation from posting on social media.
Well, when someone suddenly steals a ton of artist’s work, your digital vacation plans get ruined 😒 I’ve been scrambling to figure out how to deal with this (getting someone to take down copyrighted work on the internet is a lot harder than you think).
I’m just posting this little update to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for defending my work, encouraging me, and pledging support for Morale Fiber here and on Patreon!
On the positive side, I have had some time to think and also to recover from the setbacks earlier in the year – my crashed computer has been replaced with a fresh machine, at least. While I wrestle with fractious file transfers for my upcoming Flower Child joining tutorial, I am also pondering the orb for the future direction of Morale Fiber.
Running your own business based around your art is a wild ride. A heady mix of passion and ambition, tempered against self doubt, fought for in real sweat and sometimes tears. When things feel out of my control, I have to remind myself that it’s my creativity that drives it all, and no one can ever take that because it’s not an image on a screen or a configuration of words and numbers – it’s my real experience.
The most real thing about this business is not the files. It’s connecting with other real people and sharing that creative fire 🔥 ✨
With that in mind, I am looking hopefully forward to the new year. I hope these thoughts aren’t too rambley and I hope you all have a beautiful, restful holiday season! I will be returning to my digital vacation now ☺ I’ll emerge in the New Year with some new developments for Morale Fiber 🥰
See you soon and thank you again, for all the love, support, and creative fire 🔥
Regina, Morale Fiber
