It's easy to think that if you give just one copy of a pattern away, it can't really hurt a business. But it does.
Let me tell a story... I'll use food instead of names...
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Peanut Butter buys a pattern and downloads it. Peanut Butter's best friend Grape Jelly really loves what Peanut Butter knit and wants to try it too, but Grape Jelly doesn't have the money to buy the pattern and asks Peanut Butter for a copy.
Peanut Butter gives her a copy and thinks "it's just one copy, no one will notice, no real harm done."
Grape Jelly goes to a knitting group and she's working on the pattern Peanut Butter gave her. Everyone loves it and wants one. She gets everyones email address and emails the pattern to everyone later that night.
"It's only ten copies, no real harm done," she tells herself.
Strawberry Jam, a member of the knitting group, decides that her friends really need to knit these for gifts and emails everyone a copy.
"It's only eight copies, no real harm done, " she says to herself.
Strawberry Jam's friend Buttered Toast is thrilled - this is the pattern that everyone in the knitting newsgroup has been talking about, and since they've posted so many patterns that he's downloaded, he's got to upload this pattern to the newsgroup.
"They're all gonna love me," he says as he laughs - 20,000 copies downloaded and counting.
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That's how giving just one pattern away does hurt the business and the designer.
Two weeks ago, a pattern designer was searching for patterns and found hers on a website, free for the world. About a hundred other designers were posted there as well, including a Crafty Alien pattern.
And the question is, what do you do when someone either asks for a copy of a pattern, or offers a copy of a pattern?
