I found out this morning through a fellow designer on Ravelry that two of my most popular patterns, Harriet's Jacket and the Trellis Waistcoat, are being offered for free by a pattern-sharing website. Both these patterns were briefly offered for free by me last winter as a promotion, and I can only assume that that is how they worked their way onto this site. Confoundingly, there is no contact link on the website. I am not the only Ravelry designer affected, and there is some discussion underway to try to figure out what to do. In the meantime, please boycott these sorts of pattern-sharing sites. (I am not even including a link.) And naturally, I am reconsidering my offering of free patterns, now and in future, if it leads to this sort of unscrupulous behaviour. Arggh!
P.S. As of a few minutes ago, Harriet and Trellis have been removed from the pattern-sharing site in question. Victory! However, if you visit my pattern page on Ravelry, you'll notice that only a few very basic patterns are still free. Although temporary free promos definitely bring a lot of traffic to my page, once something is free, it seems that it's extremely difficult to haul it back into the regular paying stream. It's a case of technology being the proverbial double-edged sword! Many thanks to Spinnerific for setting me on the path to getting a resolution from the site in question.
