Comment by runawaybottle

I remember once upon a time I took a stab at spec work on 99designs. All the designs were sucky, but the contest holder commented he liked the direction my design was heading.

Within 24 hours all the other entrants copied it. That was my last foray into sharing my work. Of course, I knew this was the game, but I summarily bounced from playing that game ever again.

Don’t share your stuff until you are literally done getting what you intended to get (a job, money, credit, etc). It’s not a small community anymore, and people will copy everything.