Words are powerful. Use your own.

Two of the AssistU trainers found out yesterday that people had plagiarized from the trainers’ websites. It turned out to be a seeming misunderstanding and was corrected quickly, but it caused me to want to write about this topic today.

Several years ago, my (then) very recent ex-training director tried to take my entire training program and repackage it as her own to sell to another market.

I made her stop (legally), only to have her try it again several months later. When I went to her the second time, I used the word “plagiarism” which apparently unlocked all sorts of doors in her psyche, and helped her realize that what she’d done was inappropriate, unethical, and downright illegal.

I couldn’t believe that she didn’t KNOW that what she’d done was wrong (I mean, how can someone take a 20 week program and a 800+ page library of information and not know?), and joked with a friend that maybe she missed that day in elementary school when they taught that taking another’s work is bad.

But yesterday, when the trainers went through what they went through, I hearkened right back to that quip.

I genuinely don’t think that people know what’s ok to do and what’s not ok. I think they know that verbatim use of an entire body of work is out, but I think that beyond a certain point, it gets a little grey and formless for them, and they think that a few sentences here, a paragraph there, the same structure of a document if it has some differences—it’s all ok. I think seeing other people do it all around the Internet just adds to their confusion. If others do it, it must be ok, right?

I tried saying something like that to my mother once, in defense of something that was truly indefensible, and she gave me such a klop! She said, “Just because someone else does something isn’t a reason for you to do it. Would you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if someone else did it?”

Point made. I hope it makes it for you, too. Because it’s just not ok to steal stuff--even if everyone else around you does it and gets away with it. And that’s what plagiarism is. It’s theft, as sure as if you went to the department store and walked out wearing a dress under your clothes.

To use another analogy, in childhood, every one of us learned to ask permission before playing with someone else’s toy. Now that we’re grown up, playing without permission is stealing, and carries serious penalties.

There’s a reason it’s called “intellectual PROPERTY.” You may not be able to pick it up--like a lamp, or see it sitting in the middle of a plot of land--like a house or a goat, or spy it on a rounder in a store--like a blouse, but it’s property, nonetheless, and using is wrong in every way that I can even begin to think about it.

That is, unless permission to copy/use it has been received by the owner of the intellectual property. What’s insane is…people steal even though permission can often be had by simply asking the person who owns the thing that’s wanted!

“Please, Jack… may I use your fabulous poem in a blog post, with attribution?” “Sure, Sue…feel free!”

How hard is that, huh?

A “yes” means you can do what you asked to do. A “no” means you can’t, and you should go look for something else. A “no,” or better still, a fear of even simply hearing “no” isn’t a reason to take something that belongs to someone else.

At AssistU, we give our students licenses to use some of our stuff. It helps them get started. We also tell them that as soon as they find their own voices, they should ditch our stuff flat out and write their own, in their voices, and using their own words.

This transcends stealing. And it’s today’s Bit O’Moxie:

My words are very powerful. For me. Your words are equally powerful. For you. And your words will resonate more with the clients you attract if they are, indeed your words. If they’re not your words, then the person attracting the clients is, well, someone else, and what’s the point of that when YOU are what you’re “selling?”

Be you. Do you. Share you. Leave everyone else alone unless you ask first.

Comments

[Maria]

Great post. And good point taken about asking permission. Here's some support of that:

I'm a writer but also do some photography. My photos are displayed on a Web-based gallery that offers people a chance to buy them as prints. I was approached by a member of the Tohono O'Odham tribe here in AZ for permission to use one of my photos on an interpretive sign in a tribal park. (The photo was an aerial view of part of the Central Arizona Project Canal.) They offered to pay me for a digital copy of the photo. I didn't take their money. Instead, I gave them permission to use a high-res copy of the photo that I provided on their sign. It didn't cost them anything more than a few e-mail messages back and forth. Best of all, I feel GOOD about the transaction. They were honest about their desire to use my work and I helped them out without costing them anything.

Surely other folks feel the same way about giving permission to reuse some of their work.

"Ask and ye shall receive." Or something like that.

Thanks for the great post.

[Pat Williams]

I have run into this many times over the past several years with clients. They tell me to use someone else's content. When I refuse and explain why, they don't say "I didn't know that." They ask if anyone will even notice. I think this issue is less of an education problem and more of an "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" mentality. While asking for foregiveness it's easier to play the ignorance role because most people will forgive lack of education.