Cyber-plagiarism recently touched its pinnacle. Apple has apparently been accusing every company around the world of patent infringment. So, it's very clear that plagiarism has become a trend today among people of all ages and companies of all scales. It's also become a shortcut to do something – and rather awesomely too. Then why don't we all copy each other, grow awesome together and embrace all that it takes to plagiarize. In this article, I'll give you five mind-boggling reasons why to plagiarize.
But let's first discuss how it actually starts.
Everybody has more or less the same reason to plagiarise something, but I recently came across a unique one: Changing companies and realizing the same ideas (which are not necessarily yours) over and over again. Suppose you work in some IT firm as the marketing manager and you work there pretty well. With the help of your team, you've established some sound, successful strategies. Now when you bid farewell to that company, you take all the ideas, especially the ones that proved to be successful, along. And in order to show your new company how talented you are, you go on establishing the same strategies there as well – often times without even bettering or reworking on them a bit.
Reason 1: Copied material is always better than the remixed one (and takes less effort).
The other day I was watching this video – Everything is Remix – which drastically changed my perception about creativity and originality, and it surprisingly inclined me more towards copying and pasting rather than creating a remix – after all, you're accused anyway!
Reason 2: Google loves copied content – you knew that, didn't you?
All the webmasters out there know that Google has a secret box for precious websites and pays special, and at times personal, attention to each one of them. The sandbox more or less contains websites that engage into highly-regarded activities like copying someone's content, cloaking and keyword stuffing. But did you know: Google might create a special search engine for such sites in near future.
So, when we have a search engine with as much as 67% of market share with us, why shouldn't we blatantly copy and paste and make our lives easier.
Reason 3: Copy more and more to get the attention of media and, of course, your target audience.
History is our evidence. All those who've baldly copied have become celebrities overnight. And when media gets after you for something or the other, how can you be away from your segmented audience.
Reason 4: Then you won't wither due to hyper-competition – because there won't be any.
Competition is there between companies that differ somewhere or the other, but when everybody becomes a droppelganger of each other, there can't be anyone tasting the skyrocketing success. Because all will be at the same plane then – and the Marxist dream will be fulfilled.
Reason 5: There won't be any victim, too.
Normally, when you copy-paste somebody's website's design, they shout out loud and give you a plethora of warnings—most of which I'm sure go unheard. But when we'll start embracing plagiarism, there won't possibly be any victim as well. Or we can say everybody will be a victim – and gainer too.
Bonus Reason: We have ample mentors to start with.
The Burrp and Zomato issue
Reading through Zomato's blog post on this, my reaction was: This is one case; there are thousands and millions Zomatos out there getting copied. And since I knew that we were all going to embrace plagiarism sometime in future (that time is probably today), I wasn't much surprised on Burrp's initial reaction to Zomato as well:
The PixelCrayons and Daffodil issue
The Burrp-Zomato issue might have come to a conclusion, there are many companies that are being madly copied and the plagiarists are presumptuously ignoring their messages, calls and requests. I came across the PixelCrayons and Daffodil issue recently through this Facebook post:
Then I was tempted to see what their landing pages look like and whether the blame is true.
My reaction after looking at them: The world is moving into a darkhole of plagiarism. But rather than opposing it this time, I succumbed to the idea and hence this post – which most of you might consider a piece of satire.
How does it end?
We've come to a situation that Ionesco's famous play Rhinoceros poses – when more and more people fall for the wrong thing, it seems to be most righteous thing to do. Just wondering: Who'll be our Berenger?
Author Bio:
“Priyal Chugh is a writer and editor who's been covering the spaces such as search, web design and mobile for long. He writes for Best Design Tuts, a blog for art lovers and professional web designers and developers.”
