A Painful Example of Online Plagiarism
I want to share a recent upsetting and sad example of web plagiarism, and its consequences, as illustration and follow up to my post Protect Your Writing on the Web.
Jill Konrath, a highly respected and well-published sales professional, learned from other sales colleagues that a self-professed “Trusted Sales Adviser” had copied their content. Their posts on this subject:
- Dave Stein: Hey! Stop Plagiarizing My Content!
- Charles Green: Plagiarism, Concealment or Coincidence
- Colleen Francis: Hey! That Sounds a Lot Like Me!!
Jill ran a quick search on her own published materials, and in moments discovered her work, also, had been plagiarized She took decisive action: Outing a Plagiarizing Sales Expert
Lessons:
- It is very easy to track content on the web (use CopyScape).
- It is highly unethical to steal the content of others and pass it off as your own.
- Your reputation will likely be damaged, if not shattered, if you do this.
Jill summed this up brilliantly in her post: “What makes this so sad is that Bob Beck is probably good at what he does. He didn’t have to use other people’s words as his own…and it totally destroys his credibility.”
Note: BNet requested a response from Bob Beck, who asserts an intern gave him the copied materials. His response and BNet reader reaction is here. As you can see, this has become an explosive issue. If the plagiarism was truly unintentional, careful fact-checking with CopyScape would have prevented this uproar and professional damage.
My heart aches, considering this professional implosion. Let us all learn from this painful lesson.
