I have a partial victory! Although I have no control over how many hundreds or thousands of people have already downloaded my patterns without paying, I have contacted the websites where my stolen work had been uploaded, and, in both cases, the pattern has now been removed. Yay!

Of course, I have no idea how many other sites that I’m not aware of also have copies of my patterns on display – I have tried googling and only found the two that are no longer available, so fingers crossed this may be it for now.

Thank you to everyone who has commented – either on the blog or by e-mail – with sympathy and suggestions. I hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else. (Incidentally, the thief who targeted me obviously didn’t care about my copyright notices which are printed at the bottom of each page of all my patterns – they were still present in the ripped-off copies!)

I don’t have a photo to go with this post, so I thought I’d show off some of the fuzzies from the PlanetJune flickr group:

ClinkscalesArts has made this lovely bear (from the Fuzzy Bear pattern):

Capps83 made this monkey for a lucky co-worker (from the Fuzzy Monkeys pattern):

Hildeguard based her Inspector Mole on the Mini Fuzzies Woodland Creatures pattern – love that magnifying glass!

I’d love to see what else you’ve been making from my patterns – please feel free to show off your creations by uploading them to my Flickr group!

To the person who has been stealing my crochet patterns and posting them online: I am not a large corporation who can easily absorb a little petty theft. I am not making millions from my patterns. I work hard to produce quality patterns for the enjoyment of the crafting community and I charge a small amount as compensation for my hard work.

I was shocked and hurt when a member of the Crochetville community drew this to my attention this morning (thanks Maria!). One of the things I love most about the online craft community (bloggers, forum users, etsy shoppers, etc) is the culture of inspiration, and sharing ideas and techniques, that enriches us all. I have created lots of free tutorials and I always offer my customers any advice or help they need via e-mail. So to discover that one of my customers has betrayed me like this hurts even more.

My patterns are protected by copyright… or are they??

To all my lovely honest customers and online friends: Thank you for your comments and your custom! Your appreciation of my work makes all this worthwhile, and I’m not going to let one bad apple spoil everything for me. If you see any of my patterns illegally floating around the internet, please do let me know so I can try to stop them from spreading.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to combat this kind of thievery?