If you are member of any of the cross stitch facebook groups then chances are this topic will have come up a few times.
Pinterest, unlicensed charts and aliexpress.
There seems to be a lot of people out there who have no problem taking a photo of a chart, from a book, magazine or from a friend, and then post the whole chart onto Pinterest and similar sites.
Designers will tell you that this is a big problem for them as they earn money from each sale and if someone shares their work for free then they are losing business. Some designers have even stop designing patterns because of the stress and trouble this causes them.
The other issue is unlicensed charts aka taking someone’s artwork and making a pattern from it. Etsy is full of stuff like this – any disney pattern you see on sites like etsy or Pinterest are more than likely unlicense
I am not going to lie I love Pinterest and use it for some much, like costume and birthday planning, but if I see a pattern that I like I try and find the original source for it.
Aliexpress quite often has people posting patterns for sale that they claim are there own but usually they are an illegal copy.
Now you can legally share hard copies, ie a cross stitch magazine, of a pattern with a friend if you it is not photocopied. Pdfs and digital patterns should not be shared due to copywrite laws.
Remember designers work hard on their patterns and quite often have freebies available so please support them.
Confessions of a cross stitcher 