When is a free pattern not free?

There are several of my patterns (little witch, ballerina, 3D chicken, 3D raccoon, 3D cat, 3D dog, & 3D sheep) available on Chinese owned forums as “free patterns" – all without my permission. Needless to say I’m unhappy about this - for so many reasons it’s not OK to purchase patterns and post them on forums for others to use. It's illegal, and it deprives designers of their livelihood, + it’s totally demoralising.
 4Crafter.com & pindiyI’m amazed that some people can respect a designer’s work, but not the actual designer who works so hard to produce it for them!

This stealing has prompted me to remove some of my patterns from Bead-patterns.com in order to protect them. I now watermark them with the customer’s name, and sell at ruthkielbeadart.weebly.com. There have been no more thefts since I did this, but I feel awful about taking patterns from bead-patterns.com. 

I'm currently working on a new fish (guppy) design that I hope to put up for free (real free) at Bead-pattens.com. It's nice to use peyote stitch for fish and reptiles, as well as for mammals. I used to make fish with ladder stitch, but that now seems pretty limiting.