I prefer to spend my time writing about sales, marketing, and management for this blog. It's ground zero for my professional interests.
But today I need to write about blogging. To be specific, I want to write about one blogger who apparently continues to steal others' material in a most brazen manner.
You may have read my post a week or two ago about one Michael J. Roman. Respected blogger Jonathan Farrington discovered Roman had plagiarized his blog and other bloggers' material and posted it on Roman's blog as Roman's own creations, using the material without permission, without credit, and without a link to the original posts by the original writers of the material. He even had the audacity to place a copyright statement on each of the stolen blog posts saying he reserved all rights to the material.
A couple dozen sales bloggers outed Roman by posting and tweeting about his twenty or so counts of verified plagiarism. Roman responded by taking his blog down (one of us also had contacted Tumblr, the host of his blog, also which may have initiated the downed site).
Roman contacted Jonathan Farrington, one of his victims, to offer a mea culpa for his plagiarizing ways:
I am speechless.
I cannot apologize enough to you and I am completely embarrassed. It seems that one of my employees who is my “Creative Director” in fact is not as creative as I presumed he was. All this time I was complimenting him on his articles, which in fact were approved by me for publishing. Clearly this comes down to me no inspecting or researching his work more carefully. Basically, I was taking it for face value. We just started this blog a few months ago, and when we did, I was writing my own articles. Shortly thereafter I assigned that task to someone else. Apparently he (and I) found your articles very well written. I however did not know that he was basically stealing your information as well as the information of others.
I want you to know that I have completely deleted the blog account until further notice. Additionally, my creative director’s employment will be terminated next week following my informing of his actions to my Human Resources department. Any unethical behavior under my leadership will NOT be tolerated and I appreciate you (and others) bringing this to my attention.
I can assure you that there is no way to retrieve the old blog site.
I have read your latest blog and would appreciate if you would b so kind as to remove it at once.
Again, you have my most sincere apologies for this unacceptable act on my employee’s part, which in turn, is a direct reflection on me.Best regards,
Michael J. Roman
But a day later, Roman started up a series of new posts, the first being a post that featured a very large graphic of a gold seal, along with the headline "Integrity Verified" or something similar. The written post was a guarantee of integrity throughout his new blog.
Jonathan explained the details of this interaction with Roman and what had happened and his reaction to it in one of his blog posts (here).
Fast forward to yesterday:
One of this blog's readers (thanks Tim Parker) commented on my original Michael J. Roman post and notified the blogosphere that he once again found at least two instances of apparent continued plagiarism in Roman's NEW blog articles which he posted since the original plagiarism outing. I checked it out and found that, sure enough, it looked like Roman was right back in the saddle with his very large plagiarizer hat on.
Roman's post titled "Seven Essential Qualities of a Good Leader" was actually a post by Barbara White titled "Seven Qualities of a Good Leader."
Roman's post "Essential Steps to Negotiation" was actually a post by another author titled "15 Negotiation Workshop Rules Every Negotiator Must Know."
Moments ago, I checked Roman's blog and it's down. But whether it stays down is another matter. Or, Roman could just resurface on another web hosting platform or even possibly under another name and continue his plagiarizing ways.
The entire online community of bloggers, experts, consultants, writers, authors, and speakers across all subject matters and disciplines must join together with readers, consumers, and business people to stop the stealing of intellectual property on the internet and in every form. The internet is an incredibly wonderful tool, but only to the extent that the material that exists out there is accurate and verifiably written by the person who says they've produced it. Those of us who spend a very significant portion of our time creating material with the sole hope of helping others, entertaining readers, or attracting clients (or for any other reason) must be protected.
I encourage YOU, dear reader, to out plagiarism whenever and wherever you find it. By joining together, we can hope to at least make a dent in plagiarism and limit this despicable act.
Since his blog is down, at least for now, I encourage you to visit the apparent plagiarizer's main website. Take a good look at the material you see there. Read about his values, like integrity. Visit his "strengths" page and read his long list of "core values" including his "exceptional leadership qualities including honesty". Visit his "Philosophy" page and read about his "3 point ethics analyzer." Visit his "About Me" page, and stop by his "Testimonials," "Affiliations," and "Accolades" pages and then ask yourself one thing.
Is any of it real?
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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