Had a jackass write me the other day, saying he wanted to subscribe to my newsletter… but first…. he wanted to know if he could just copy what I have written and repackage it to sell to his own group.
Then the jackass proceeded to tell me that “plagiarism is a very difficult thing to prove.” Hardeeharharhar.
Really? Plagiarism is one of the EASIEST things to prove. There are laws for it. That’s why we have copyright and trademark laws.
I wrote him back. I was brief.
“You just disqualified yourself.”
And his reply to me was that he was smiling and laughing out loud at my answer. Notice I did not write LOL for “laughing out loud.”
Moral of the story: Be an original. Learn from all the great ones, then write your own copy. Sure, there are certain key words that are universal that all of us can use in our own way. That’s not plagiarism. Rewriting a headline in your own words instead of taking it verbatim. But if enough of it what you rewrote looks and smells like a skunk, it probably is.
Let me give you an example: Back when I lived in Santa Cruz County, California, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant opened. The owner called it McDharma’s.
No ham or fowl, eh?
There were no Golden Arches, no gigantic M’s in front of the restaurant, no fun meals, no playland, no red-headed clowns.
Yet, there was a law suit filed, and guess who won that one?
Well, it wasn’t Donald’s. It was McDonald’s. And from that day forward McDharma’s was known as Dharma’s.
How bout that?
You may not care for the writings of el Furecat, but one thing that all my subscribers know, I am an original. And the vast majority, as in 97.777%, of what I write comes from me.
You might think that my way is too hard, that’s it’s easier to be a knockoff marketer instead of a knockout marketer.
Great. Take the easy way and live the rest of your life as a mere fragment, and by this I mean .00000001 percent of who and what you are capable of becoming… as well as earning.
Put me in the ring against a knockoff artist and I will bludgeon him inside of sixty seconds. I’ll be in the dressing room enjoying a nice interview whilst the other guy is in the hospital, where someone else is licking his wounds.
And so it goes…
You heard it here first, in my own MachiaFurian sort of way.
Matt Furey
