In one of the resin jewelry groups I belong to on facebook, someone posted that they received a threatening message from another vendor claiming that they were stealing their designs and asked for help on how to handle it.

This happens quite often in the art community. And yes people steal. All the time. Huge, well known companies rip off the work of artists ALL the time. And other artists do the same thing. A big problem is people stealing the photographs of other people’s work and passing it off as theirs. Then when someone buys the piece the receive a poor replica of someone else’s work. 

That said, there are a lot of people who get accused of stealing and copying who are innocent. There are a lot of paranoid artists out there. I’ve had it happen to me. And it’s something I take very seriously. But the person in question was being ridiculous. Furthermore I saw tons on pieces on their site that were similar to others I saw online. I said as much and never heard from them again.

I just feel that it must be really exhausting to go through life feeling like everyone’s out to get you. There’s enough for all of us and you have to have faith in your work. Beyond that you have very little control.