I agree @EileensCraftStudio, I really struggle with it, I don’t think that ideology helps with the root issue either. I felt like I’d put the hours into the initial ideas and experimenting, for someone to have the finished design.
1 Like
Have you spoken to her about this Sarah? I’m not sure how the copyright law applies outside the UK but if there are videos of her copying one of your designs and then she sells it, surely that proves that she’s copying you and should be enough to get her to stop?
1 Like
I raised the issue on a mutual pyrography group, and then promptly got blocked by her. I do have a few screenshots, and her name, and found she follows my Facebook page, so banned her from that. I should imagine for a wahm with little savings pursuing her legally might be expensive and futile 
All the stories above are awful and in some cases downright unbelievable - you really can’t understand how people can be so blatant, but my experience tells me they can. I’d seen it happen with the jewellery just by keeping up with my competitors - which is good marketing practice - but when we started looking into it for the commercial photography business, it was staggering and I had to learn the law very quickly (luckily I had done some law as part of my degree).
The first thing I know is what is being spoken about here is not plagiarism - which deals solely with the written word - but breach of copyright and/or intellectual property. Both are a criminal offence under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and breach of the act has some very severe consequences IF you can prove it AND afford to pursue it (which is why we have an outside agency work on our behalf on a no win, no fee basis).
There are some things you can do yourself and I did post a link to the Intellectual Property Office - the government agency that deals with such things - above, but it seems to have been overlooked, so here it is again:
and most of you might find the section on designs - registering them, protecting them etc - most useful:
https://www.gov.uk/topic/intellectual-property/designs
Camilla @folksycontent if Folksy has a policy on breach of copyright/intellectual property, could you post a link please as that would be helpful.
2 Likes