Interesting thread! When I comment on lovely quilts at our guild show and tell, especially if I inquire about the name/designer of the pattern, many folks will say something like, "Oh, don't buy it, I'll copy mine." Which is often a copy already, for crying in the beer. It amazes and disappoints me.
An annual event - Bonnie Hunter's huge mystery - starts soon. It'll be posted on her blog, in weekly segments, for 6 to 8 weeks. Then she'll say - and send/post reminders - that it's going to remain up until (whatever date, usually in late June or July). At that point, it is taken down and will be put in a future book. I can't tell you how many times people have sent me PM's saying, "I know it's not posted any more, so can you just send me a copy so I don't have to buy the book next year?" Um... No. I usually just don't answer b/c I don't know how to tactfully say it's illegal!
I often say that I'm good at following instructions, but am not creative enough to come up with a pattern. If I want people to be successful in the quilting design business so that I can follow those patterns, I'd better be willing to pay them to do it.
And once I'm done with a pattern, it's unlikely that I'll make it again. First, I'm usually really glad to be finished doing the same thing over and over. Second, there are too many things that I want to make. I'll never get to them all even making just one, so sure can't make more than one. Once I'm done with them, I usually give them away at guild meetings. The original pattern, with any notes I made and all, not a copy!