The Scourge of the Blogosphere: Plagiarism and Michael J. Roman

The blogosphere is amazing, isn't it? Just think of all the wonderful tidbits of really good information floating about in cyberspace, put there by people who have passion for their field or to offer a helping hand. The amount of information available in the blogosphere is astounding, especially when it comes to information about sales, marketing, management, and business.

Personally, I subscribe to about forty blogs, and I read them every chance I get. As a very active blogger myself, I revel in the idea that people from all corners of the world find value in what I have written.

But there is a dark side to the blogosphere that we all should be aware of. And we need to do what we can to shine a light on this dark underbelly of the internet. Thus, my post today.

Enter one "Michael J. Roman." Mr. Roman may have some excellent qualities, but he appears to be a plagiarizer with a significant body of others' work that he claims to be his own work. According to his LinkedIn Profile, Roman is a Managing Director at Modis, part of the MPS group.

[Update on 7/7/2010:  I see that Mr. Roman has taken down his "Michael J. Roman" profile at LinkedIn, so the link in the previous paragraph won't work. He replaced it with a new LinkedIn profile (with new photo!) under the name of "Mike Roman" - you can view this profile here. ]

My friend Jonathan Farrington, one of the most respected business bloggers on the planet, just discovered that approximately twenty of Jonathan's blog posts have been republished (without his permission) on Michael J. Roman's site, plagiarizer. Each had been published by Roman as if they were his own work. In fact, Roman had the audacity to attach this to each of his stolen posts:

"The moral right of the author, Michael J. Roman, has been asserted. © Copyright 2010. All rights reserved."

Gutsy. Especially for a plagiarizer who lists "integrity" as #4 on his list of "top ten traits for success."

While checking out Roman's blog for any possible appearances of my own writing, I ran across a post by my friend and fellow sales trainer Kelley Robertson called "Boost Your Sales Instantly." The plagiarized version on Roman's site is titled "Instantly Boost Sales." There's no mention of the real author, nor is their a link to his site or the original article.

I love the blogosphere. But we all need to do what we can to rid it from plagiarizers like Michael J. Roman.

Please retweet or repost. Let's get the word out about Mr. Roman. It is my hope that by the time you read this post, the links to Roman's post will be dead, meaning he's taken his site down or at least deleted the stolen posts from his site.

If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment.Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.

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Comments

[Paul SImon]

Well, what a surprise. The Roman blog is gone today.

[Mark Roberge]

Nice work getting this issue resolved through digital means Skip. As an FYI, Google and most search engines do a good job identifying which blog publishes the article first and only includes that blog article in the search engine results. Duplicate content is not added to the index and therefore much harder to find. That said, plagiarizers do benefit by promoting the content to their own network as their own. As you say, this behavior is inappropriate.

A far more effective approach is re-producing a summary of the article and then adding your own commentary on the subject. The original author should appreciate being referenced in this way as it raises the visibility of their article.

[Nancy Bleeke]

Skip, as you know the blog has been removed. What is sad is that this happens more than we might want to believe. Late fall of 2009 I had a plagiarizer directly steal one of my articles, Sales Meetings that Stick. Like Roman, she claims she had NO idea it was 'lifted' and that someone on her staff suggested she write an article 'like it' but since she couldn't find who the author was, she couldn't do as Mark Roberge suggested. On one hand, how flattering that someone thinks that highly of someone else's work. But the bigger picture - its WRONG!
We work too hard to write the articles.
So, thank you for your professional approach to reminding us all that plagiarism is around.
Roman has no idea of the power of Jonathan Farrington's groupies :)
Best to you.

[Dave Kurlan]

Thanks Skip, for bringing people like Plagiarizer to everyone's attention.

[Skip]

Here's an update from Jonathan Farrington's Blog: http://www.thejfblogit.co.uk/2010/06/06/michael-j-roman-plagiarism-the-apology-final-thoughts/

What do you think?

[Tdparker]

Final thoughts?? I think not.

His blog is back up churning out 2 posts a day starting a week ago. And you don't have to look far to see that he is doing the same old, same old.

Seven Qualities of a Good Leader (last post) also here: http://www.groco.com/readingroom/bus_goodleader.aspx.
(Who'd be silly enough to steal from a law firm, eh?)

Essential Steps to Effective Negotiation also here: http://negotiationsworkshop.com/negotiation-training-15-Negotiation-Workshop-Rules-Every-Negotiator-Must-Know.html

and so on.

Clearly he is a pathological kleptomaniac.

I came to this blog because there is another blogger driving me nuts by stealing other people's stuff, including mine, and she is getting a lot of tweets and traffic. She has ignored my request to take down our stuff and continues to rip off other people's.

Apparently she isn't the only one. But she works for a sizable company and I am hesitant to get into a public spat. She is also at least a bit clever - she moves the words around so that not one sentence is exactly the same - but it's still plagiarized. These people are parasites. Is it time to contact tumblr again?

Tim

[Leanne Hoagland-Smith]

With content being King and far fewer individuals able to deliver great messages, there will continue to be individuals such as Mr. Roman and the woman Tim mentions. Staying vigilant toward these types of behaviors is always a good thing.

[Jim Leonard]

He's Back. on January 5th 2013, Mr. Michael J. Roman Posted a new article on his site- http://ileadem.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/what-youre-missing-when-it-comes-to-healthcare-technology-by-michael-j-roman/

Said article looks exactly like an article I wrote in September of last year - http://www.medkinetics.com/blog/bid/216787/Healthcare-Technology-What-You-re-Missing

Unbelievable