If it’s not yours…don’t take it!
Don’t take web copy, photos and various other items from someone else’s web site. Seems like a pretty basic rule to follow, but for some people…well…I guess it isn’t. You have to know it’s wrong. Thanks to technology like Copyscape. It can be pretty easy to find out if you are a victim of web content theft. You don’t have to steal web content or anything else for that matter. There are other avenues one can take. For example, if you aren’t the greatest writer hire someone to write your web content for you. If you would like to use a picture, why not contact the owner and ask for their permission to use it. Don’t let your fear of rejection stop you from doing the right thing. They may in fact grant your request. Think about the consequences of your actions! Your victim has a host of resources they can take against you. It does not have to be this way. Sure there is a talent to writing web content and not everyone has it. If you fit into this category…I’ve already given my advice on this matter, but here it is again…Hire someone to do it for you. If you are a good writer…give yourself the time you need to write, edit and rewrite the content until you get it just write. Will it take days, weeks or months? Perhaps it will. But it will be your words, your time, your effort. Now ask yourself…How would you feel if someone just came along and took it?
Have you read the book “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned In Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum? It’s a great book about the basic principals (dont take things that dont belong to you being one of them) we learned as children are all we really need to steer our way through this maze we call life. It’s easy for adults to forget these basic principals…I mean after all…we’re adults and have other things on our minds. So here’s a reminder for us all. The following is an excerpt from “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned In Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum:
“All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
~ Share everything.~ Play fair.~ Don’t hit people.~ Put things back where you found them.~ Clean up your own mess.~ Don’t take things that aren’t yours.~ Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.~ Wash your hands before you eat.~ Flush.~ Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.~ Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.~ Take a nap every afternoon. ~When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.~ Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.~ And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”
Excerpt Source: “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN” by Robert Fulghum. See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/
2 Responses to “If it’s not yours…don’t take it!”
August 20th, 2007 at 10:55 am
[...] Daniel has written a great blog post about copyright infringement called “If It’s Not Yours…Don’t Take It!” Here is an excerpt: Don’t take web copy, photos and various other items from someone [...]
August 20th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
One thing you leave out is that you can look for Creative Commons licensed work to use. It’s as simple as following the license and using it correctly. Piece of cake and free!
All in all though, great article, I think a lot on this topic, as per my site, but I never thought about how Fulghum might apply to this topic…
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