Anyone who works hard deserves the rewards they reap from that hard work. Anyone who creates something new deserves the credit for that creation. Unfortunately, there are people in the world that want to skip the work and/or creation part. They want to jump ahead to the reward—and all too frequently they want to make that jump through someone else’s efforts.
You see, my friend and colleague Jonathan Farrington recently alerted me to an appalling situation. Jonathan is a smart, talented and prolific writer on various sales topics. His articles appear all over the Internet. They are smart, cogent and thought-provoking… unfortunately, Michael J. Roman thinks so as well. You see Michael J. Roman has taken many of Jonathan’s articles (and it seems other sales trainers as well) and posted them on his Blog as his own!
Plagiarism of anyone’s work is immoral, unethical and illegal. As someone who makes a living by writing I am compelled to protest. Michael J. Roman (and anyone else who does this) is a thief. He must be exposed and he must be stopped.
I am reposting below, in its entirety, Jonathan’s post from his Blog.
When Plagiarism Is NOT Flattering
I would like to introduce you to Michael J. Roman – Michael who? Exactly. But after today, I suspect so many more people will be familiar with that name, as it flies around the “Blogosphere” and becomes the topic of much “Twittering”
Here is how Michael describes himself:
“Michael is a POLISHED BUSINESS EXECUTIVE with a proven history of success including nearly fifteen years of successful leadership experience.
Michael is highly skilled in effective, strategic management of sales, operations, administrative, and consulting professionals in addition to full operations and profit and loss (P&L) management…..” Etc. etc. You can read more here
You may also be impressed by Michael’s “core values” particularly this one:
“Integrity – The most important of all values. Michael’s belief is that integrity is not optional, nor is it situational.”
Michael posts to his site virtually every day, and the articles are of a very high quality -he goes to great lengths to protect “his” copyright:
“©Copyright 2010 Michael J. Roman. All rights reserved.
Except where specifically noted, no information within this blog may be copied, duplicated, stored in a retrieval system or reproduced in any form without the express written consent of Michael J. Roman. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact me at the following email address: michael@michaeljroman.com.”
Nothing unusual about that? Well, yes actually. Why does someone go to such lengths to spell out their copyright statement, when they have total disregard for everyone else’s?
You see, Michael doesn’t actually write his own material – he steals it from other people. He just goes and copies it from other people’s sites and claims it as his own.
On his first page alone, there are seven of my blog posts, and in total, I found twenty!
Sometimes he leaves the title and the text wholly intact, other times he changes it to suit himself, here is an example:
I posted “So, Just What Are The Essential Leadership Qualities?”
“I have been “leading” since I was eight years old – my first soccer captaincy – and I have been leading for most of my life.”
He posts “What Are Essential Leadership Qualities” and changes the text to:
“I have been “leading” since I was twelve years old – being the lead drummer for my grammar school jazz band – and I have been leading for most of my life.”
I am not the only “victim” – several of my colleagues and friends have also had their work pirated, and to say the least, they are not impressed.
On Thursday, I took the unusual step of adding an additional copyright notice to my post – I placed this at the foot –
“The moral right of the author, Jonathan Farrington, has been asserted. © Copyright 2010 All rights reserved.
This article or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.”
But that did not deter him – he not only stole my post, he also stole my copyright notice and replaced my name with his!
If that were not enough, he has now re-published an article, which I first published on Ezine Articles on October 27th 2006 –
http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-The-Different-Influencing-Styles&id=340096
And claimed it as his own –
http://www.about-personal-growth.com/influencing.html
This week, I celebrated my 900th post on this blog. Each of those posts took time and effort to craft. Each of the 200 articles that I have written and published on various sites over the last four years has also required a huge investment of my time. Why have I bothered – after all, I know lots of people who write so much better than me?
You know the answer to that question.
So, what to do now? I am going to let nature take care of itself for a few days, and then I will be in contact with Michael. Or maybe he will do the decent thing and contact me first.
I would have willingly given him all of my work to re-publish, if he had asked – as long as he placed my bio underneath them, and not his own!
I will of course keep you fully updated as events unfold.
There is a chance that by the time you get to read this, he will have taken the site down, so you can download a PDF of the front page here.
