Every now and then, I see other artists muttering about people biting their style and/or cloning crafts they’ve done limited runs of. I think they’re going about it all wrong.
When other people are biting your style, that means you are awesome – you have carved out an idiom, and you have defined it so well that you get people shamelessly imitating you. That’s pretty awesome! You’ve blazed a trail into the wilderness, and a few people are following you. If you like having other people hanging out in this place you found, then you don’t have to do anything – but if you don’t, if having these people drawing the same way you do is making you itchy, then it’s time to move on. Open yourself to new influences, strike out on a new path, see what adding something new into the mix can do. It’s the universe telling you to level up.
When people are copying a crafty item you’ve made, sure, that means they’re riding on your coattails. If it’s moving for them, then that means that this thing you came up with is so cool that the world wants more of it than you’re willing or able to make. Do you want to own the market for this thing you came up with? Then own it: take on an apprentice (maybe even one of the people shamelessly ripping you off, if they’re close enough), hire someone to make the things, or look into ways of mass producing it and throw that sucker on Kickstarter. Clones are the universe’s way of saying “this is a cool thing and I want more”. This, too, is an invitation to level up.
If you’re comfortable where you are, that’s fine. But acknowledge that you are making a choice to not move on, and that other people will be joining you in this pretty sweet new artistic territory you’ve carved out.
(Disclaimer: Nobody’s ever made a serious stab at biting my style or cloning a thing I’ve made. Arguably I am just talking out of my ass here.)