craftiquette?

A little bit of interestingness is going on in blogland at the moment, centred around the issue of copying. You can read a little more about the situation over at the Meet Me at Mikes blog.

I thought I'd flag this here on my blog also, given that it's an issue that's quite close to home for me at the moment. Shannon, Kristen and I have talked about it at some length recently - about blog etiquette in general and the sharing of ideas.

I like to think that I'm a fairly open person. I like to share information about my ideas and processes - how things came to be, sometimes even step by step tutorials. If someone emails me for specific information, I am usually quite willing to divulge.

I'm also quite sensitive about potentially copying someone else's ideas. If something I'm doing seems to close to someone else's, I like to flag it, like the birch forest design. And funnily enough, the other day when I was worrying about my notebook kit being too similar to another kit I saw at the trade show, it was the very same crafter (as in the issue above) who's "sew your own" kits I was referring to. Her packaging and the way she'd folded her fabric was just how I had done my prototype, and I was really worried that mine was accidentally too similar (until Shannon told me I was being silly).

Anyway, my point is, when you act/think a certain way, you sort of have the good faith that others will act/think similarly. When someone uses a large information that I give them on my blog or in an email (eg a tutorial), I implicitly expect that they'll give me credit somewhere along the line, because that's what I'd do. I don't expect this in all instances, but definitely ones where I've divulged specific information that you might not be able to get elsewhere.

But, unfortunately not everyone thinks this way, which is a little upsetting. Which raises the question - what is the correct blogging/crafting etiquette? How similar is too similar? When is credit due? What are your experiences and what do you expect from your blog readers and peers?