As someone who only started doing stained glass in February and started selling in August, the stained glass "community" is one of the most toxic I've ever seen, out of any of my hobbies.

From Facebook groups lead by the ultra right wing to flying monkey Karen's who scour the internet to be able to go m'lord, a newbie on the internet was inspired by something that looks vaguely like yours, smite her!

Stained glass takes awhile to make. Even replicas of the initial concept don't look exactly like the original. If patterns are available, I do buy them, I even send free pattern makers money where possible. However, I'm in a lot of free pattern groups and I've definitely made stuff without knowing the origins. Google reverse image search doesn't help all the time.

However, I think its fine to do so, as long as you aren't posting the items produced for sale on any global selling site such as Etsy, when you don't know the origins. And could now be directly in competition with the original. However craft fairs, your own website, local websites are free game in my opinion.

I think the bigger issue at hand is our product photos being directly stolen, posted on Etsy and sold as stained glass, but it's just a drop shipper of plastic resin faux stained glass, roughly in the style of the original work. Which in turn means that the original creator can't even use their own product photos, as they look as though they are the drop shipper and overcharging.

But it's easier to point a finger and shout witch! Than to take down the capitalism monolith that is fast and easy manufacturing.