copying ickyness

So here is the short story. this design, my singing birds / reinbirds, is probably my most copied design. and it has happened again recently, and it upsets me every time. I don't want to write who did it and show their stuff. I just wanted to put it out there, that this is my design, the first design I ever listed and sold in my Etsy shop in 2007. I just felt the need, to put it out there. these are not good copies, and I hate the idea that people might think they are my work. blah.
 

I thought another european based artist Stephanie from Petit Plat put it really well, why copying is wrong, in her blog. if you are unsure about the whole idea of copying you should have a read here.

and as a final message to the person(s) who put up a tutorial on their blog on how to make my exact design, hence letting everyone who comes across it believe they are allowed to make and sell my design: thank you so much. you've given me a great idea of my own, I'm thinking I'll make a tutorial for my blog called How to be a Crafting Jackass.

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the top photo, shows my first ever sold item on etsy, I called my birds the four chickens back then, september 2007. heavens above what an awful photo, it's a miracle this card sold. on the right, in 2009, when I added antlers for a christmas theme. I also did horns for a halloween theme. that was an epic fail, looked like a bird with three beaks. lets not talk about that design again.
below, these are my singing birds / reinbirds in their current form, gift tags and note cards. I don't make a lot of these designs anymore, they're very time consuming for such a simple thing, but they're my very first commercial design, from the earliest days of my business, so I am very attached to them.