As someone who actually has some experience in this particular industry (my mother ran a cross-stitch group for a number of years) I can tell you that the numbe

As someone who actually has some experience in this particular industry (my mother ran a cross-stitch group for a number of years) I can tell you that the number one gripe has always been - the price of designs. It has always been very difficult to make a good living from stitching supplies, including designs, it's one of those weird disconnects where people have always seemed to resent paying for them. Kits always sold better than designs alone and I don't think many people paid out too often if they could help it, and this was 10 years ago. My mother had design software back then, so I imagine it is still available today, and if people can do it themselves, or get a techy relative (lol) to whip up what they want, why pay for it? I also doubt that this "piracy" trend is new, the designs back then were just printed in black and white on paper with number references for the thread colour, people could just photocopy them or simply hand them around. I imagine that this kind of behaviour is what is going on now, I mean I think it's similar to the cry of "everyone should buy their own CDs", stitching is one of those things where people share deigns. I mean you take a look at the Etsy listings someone posted, these are discrete seperate peices, one alphabet letter is $4, all of them are very simple, and unlikely to be used alone, so you get back to designs being stupidly expensive. Want to write a name with your Disney character design? It'll all add up, and then the stitcher needs the threads and equipment on top of the design, so people share designs, I know Wendy has an A, I could get an L and so and so has a I and so on. 10 years ago, the large designs were being sold as high as a few hundred £s each, and people baulked at the price, they baulked at £25, they baulked at £10 or less sometimes, lol, everything was too expensive, and it's hard to justify spending a large amount of money on a hobby with little return apart from as a nice gift. One interesting thing would be to see who the demographic is these days, because piracy tends to be associated with the young, but stitching tends to be the refrain of middle aged and older women, I'd be interested to know, if it is still the 45+ demographic and if they even realise they ARE "pirating" designs.