Principles and Plagiarism

My contracting company has had a web site for nearly 14 years—we were one of the first painting contractors with a web presence. This, along with my writing skills, has made the content of my site a target for pirates.

Over the years, a remarkable number of individuals have decided that they would use content from my site. With only a handful of exceptions, this was done without my knowledge or permission. In other words, they stole from me.

What I find particularly interesting in many of these cases is the particular content these pirates choose. For example, one decided to copy my entire site, substituting the name of his company in the appropriate places. He even used quotes from my employees talking about an organization he did not belong to.

Included in his plagiarism was the use of my tag line, “Painters with Principles”. This was both amusing and infuriating. The infuriating part was his blatant disregard for the intellectual property rights of others. The amusing part was his hypocritical claim of being principled.

To be principled means to be guided by a specific set of rules of conduct. It means that one acts in a certain manner consistently and without exception, that one does not make exceptions when it is “convenient” or expedient. Principles provide us with the tools to choose our values and the means for attaining them.

You may think that this is ivory-tower BS that has nothing to do with paint contracting. You would be horribly wrong.

Consider just a few of the choices you might face in a day:
1. You meet with a customer to inspect a job and promise an estimate on a particular day. Do you honor your commitment, or ignore it because you conclude that the customer is cheap and won’t pay your price?
2. You discover some rotted wood that wasn’t included in your estimate. Do you tell the customer and supply a price, or do you slap some caulk on it?
3. A customer asks if you like the color she selected. Do you give your opinion, and simply tell her that it will look great?

Your answer to each of these—and the myriad other choices you face in a day—are ultimately determined by your principles, or lack thereof. And your choices will ultimately determine the results that you get. Your choices will ultimately determine if you are successful or a failure.

Those who think that they can steal my words are certainly cheating me. They will come up with all kinds of excuses to rationalize their behavior—“I’m not hurting anyone”, “it’s just words”, “everybody does it”, etc. But what they don’t realize is that they are the primary victim of their dishonesty. They can lie to their customers (which they are doing by plagiarizing), they can lie to their wives, they can lie to the world, but they cannot lie to themselves. They know, whether they choose to admit it or not, that they are scoundrels.

There was a time when I would simmer over such actions. I no longer do so. Instead, I remind myself that such people are living the miserable lives that they deserve. And I let my lawyer make their lives a little more miserable.