This is a small community, anyone crafting something here is usually doing it on a small, personal scale, and it could be seen that at the community level, if someone has an idea to do something, you respect that idea and consider they have 'dibs' at least for a reasonable time, or if they have succeeded, you respect that as their particular thing.
Its not the same as running off a copy of some picasso, or nike trainers. or copying a trademark icon of some multinational. In this place, its like two friends at college, one fancies one girl, the other backs off. If he gets nowhere, the other may try, or may ask his friend if he can try. If the first guy dates the girl for a reasonable time, then you could argue that stops a friend forever unless they get real permission. And if their friend says no, don't go for it. Maybe some don't feel this way here, but I think it is how it should be. This is a group area for crafters just as if we were all sat in the same hall crafting away as we vendor.
But then there is the issue of 'how close' a copy. And thats a whole big nest of worms. I work with metal, and as far as that goes there is only so much variety in material. Just as there are only so many basic colours of plastic for a key without it being 'close' to another shade. I have seen at least 6 or 8 types of skull keys, in metal and plastic, but the designs were pretty different and showed at least some originality. For consensus on whether something is just a copy, sometimes it is obvious, sometimes its just count the number of pitchforks waving at the gate. Maybe the 'copycaps' shouters have a valid point, maybe they are too sensitive, in a small community, sometimes you have to adjust to people being a bit sensitive and maybe change your designs a bit more to avoid offence. This should be nothing major for a true artisan.
People like Clack, Brocaps, Binge, Nubbs, Cherpalla, many others, have managed to create something which is, I think, sufficiently unique to their own style that you can call it creative and original. Creating an original and selling often requires much effort. Hype, advertising, practising designs, discarding designs, learning what thickness works, what curves work. Sometimes hundreds of dollars creating moulds, templates, buying tools, whatever. If someone does that work, it is not in good spirit to set up shop next door selling their same designs. That is just letting someone elses labour pull your cart for you, or chasing a quick buck. Not quite like copying Cherry fonts, more like helping yourself to the fries of the guy sat at the next table.
It can be frustrating if you want a Tardis keycap and the guy who sort-of runs the crafting of them has only made 6 and they are $200 each, but theres many ways to create a tardis keycap without just copying the design directly. You want skeletor on a keycap, do a side view, do a 3d view, do the Tatooine survival gear edition, whatever. I think the many Iron-mans that have shown up are a little encroaching on each other, but at least some of them had new ways of doing a tin face on a key, and tried for some originality (although maybe not all of them)
It may also depend on who is copied, if they take offence then stop doing it, even if you think they may be a little sensitive. If they approve or voice no concerns, its still nice to ask beforehand if there are many similarities.
tl;dr - Artisans can change and create original designs, so if a design offends many, do a new one, artist.
