131 | What to do when someone steals your work

0:00 Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman, and this podcast is for herbalists and nutritionists who are in clinical practice. Today's question comes up fair amount when I am doing one-on-one mentoring with people or in our practice management calls that are part of my Monday Mentoring Program. And the question is, how can we prevent people from stealing or copying our written work? Or what should we do if somebody has done this? If they've taken something that we've written and used it for themselves, either straight up or maybe modifying it a little bit. And I think my answer is maybe a little different than what other people might say.

0:43 So I wanted to just share the thoughts here in case it's helpful for anybody else. All right, so generally speaking, I know that it's irritating when this happens, and it can feel, in fact, devastating when something that you've worked really hard on seems to have been just basically plucked out of your, website or your social media feed or whatever it is, and then somebody just used it for themselves, especially if you're not. They did really well with it. Maybe it got more likes and comments or traction or what have you when this other person posted it than when you did. So here are a few of the things that I think about. I think the natural response is that's not fair, right? We have this sense of justice that kicks in and you're like, wait a minute, I worked so hard on this and then this person just like took it and used it without attribution, without giving credit and that's not fair and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:36 And absolutely, technically speaking, in some cases, they have taken your intellectual property, and they have used it, and so on and so forth. And so if you wanted to be super stringent about things, you could certainly reach out to the person and say, hey, this looks a lot like XYZ, or what have you. But I think there's another way to go about it. So first of all, I think it's worth acknowledging the idea that sometimes we just have similar ideas. You know, if it's not exactly a copy and paste of something that you did, or you said, it's possible that you both got the idea from the same place. Or it's possible that something that you said stimulated something they said, they couldn't exactly remember the way that you phrased it, and it just came out the same way or very similar.

2:20 You know, I think there's, there is a certain amount of collective consciousness. And if something's out there in the world, it may pop up in different places in different ways. And it may seem like somebody's copying what you're doing. In other cases, I think it makes sense for people to copy. For example, when I teach newsletter writing, I have a certain order, a certain way that I structure my newsletter, and I encourage people to try that way out for themselves. So I do like a little written note, then I do things that are upcoming in my practice, and then I do three recommendations. I find that that format works really well, and I know tons of people who use that format. Some of them probably because of me, which is great.

3:04 I don't feel that that's copying at all. I mean, in some ways, they got the idea for me. Some people did. But I don't, that doesn't impinge upon my practice in any way. And I love that this format works for people and they're using it and borrowing it and modifying it and adapting it. And I don't feel the need to take any credit for that or to contact people and say like, hey, I don't think this is appropriate or whatever. I think that's great. However, if somebody were to take my exact newsletter and maybe modify a couple things and send it out to their people, which has happened before. I've had somebody send out a note that's, you know, I'm on a lot of people's newsletters. And I've had somebody take newsletter message that I sent and slightly modify it and send it out.

3:47 And I was like, oh, that doesn't feel good at all. But the question is, is it worth saying anything? Is it worth contacting the person to be like, hey, this is really similar to the one I sent out last week or whatever else? And my thought is really just no, it's not worth it. And here, let me talk you through the reasons. I'll give you another example, too, while I'm talking you through this. I have had multiple times I've had sales pages that I write, which, by the way, a sales page or invitation page or whatever you want to call it, those are probably some of the hardest writing that I do personally. It feels like every single word is getting water from a stone, like just trying to figure out the right way to say things.

4:32 I put so much time and thought into how I want to express something and how I want to say something that's not manipulative, but that's clear about what I'm offering and makes sense to the person who's going to read it. Those are some of the pages that I work the hardest on of everything that I've written. And I've had multiple times over the years where people have, who I know are in my kind of orbit, and I've seen sales pages that they have posted that are very, very similar, to mine in ways that are a little bit hard to attribute to chance or the collective consciousness that I was talking about before. And that's really hard because it's like, oh man, you know, like I really, really want.

5:15 There's a lot of me in those pages and it feels really icky to see them more or less with a few things modified, you know, like a different, a slightly different program somebody's offering or like they changed a few words here and there. It doesn't feel good at all. And, you know, technically you can go down the legal pathway or you can just message them and be like, hey, you know, this is what's going on, whatever. And I just feel like it's not worth the energy and the time that it would take because the thing is, is like, you know, information is out there. And in my opinion, if somebody takes what you have done and they just like plop it into their own ecosystem in their own context with their own people, it's not going to resonate the same way that it does, when you've written it for your context and your people.

6:05 And what I've noticed over the years is that the people who have basically kind of taken sales pages or, program descriptions or things like that from me and use them in their own work, I keep a loose eye on those and none of them are still doing them anymore because they don't work. They don't work in that person's context. So I just try to take the approach that like that's energetically on them, right? If they want to take somebody else's work and modify for themselves and put it on their website, I don't want to get involved in that energy. I feel like it just adds an icky energy to my entire life. Ecosystem, if I'm starting to reach out to people and policing their work and being like, this sounds too similar to what I did and like, blah, blah, blah.

6:49 I just know that energetically speaking, these things don't, they don't pan out in the long run. So that is my approach to it. It's like, okay, you know, if somebody is basically taking what you've done word for word and posting it here, there, and everywhere, can you like unfollow them or like unsubscribe them from your newsletter and things like that? Sure. If you want to reach out to them and be like, hey, you know, whatever. Yes, you can, but then realize that that's going to take a certain amount of time and mental energy and emotional energy from your work. That then you will not be able to put into whatever you're currently working on. And maybe it's big enough that it makes sense. Maybe it's big enough that you want to contact a lawyer and be like, hey, this is legitimately hurting my business and I was doing this first and you know, blah, blah, blah.

7:34 But again, in my experience, the universe kind of just takes care of that because it doesn't work when somebody else does it. So the only other thing I will say is that I, for the most part, I feel very happy for people to take what I'm doing and build on it or respond onto it or work it into their own work. And so what I try to do is most of the pages of my website have a Creative Commons license on them where I'm like, you are free to take what's here and use it or build on it or change it or modify it or what have you, as long as you attribute me. As long as you link back to this work, I'm good with that. The only pages of my website that don't say that are.

8:14 Some of the sales pages where I'm like, I'm actually really not fine with people taking them and building on them and even with attribution because again of how much, specific thought and work goes into those and I just think that they're very dependent on, me and my context so I'd rather people didn't and they do still like I said they do sometimes and that's I just have to trust that it's just not going to work as well because it's not their words they need to put it in their words they need to use language and even a whole, course design or structure design that works for their people and their people are by definition, not my people. Like we have, we each have our own. We each have our own audience. We each have our own communities that we're part of. And there may be overlap, but they're not the same.

8:57 And so, basically, that's what I'm saying, is that, yes, you can get worried, even proactively, you can be like, oh, what if somebody takes my best work or what have you? Or you can just be like, you know what, I'm putting this out there for people to read and to share and to use, like to work from. And if somebody wants to do something that's unethical, such as like take my entire idea, concept, phrasing, page, and pretend it's theirs when it's not without any attribution, that's an energetic decision that they've made that I'm not going to get involved in. Like, I'm just going to be here doing my thing in integrity. And I know that where those ideas came from, more are coming.

9:41 And the same is not true if you just copy and take things from other people. That's not what happens. So that's my two cents, is that first of all, let's not. Preemptively worry about what if people steal this. If you have a really great idea and other folks could benefit from it, put it out there and be clear about how you want it to be shared and so forth. You can say, you can use that Creative Commons license. You can say like, hey, please share it, build on it, be my guest, but make sure you attribute me. And also if it does happen think through your options if it really feels big and unexcusable inexcusable and you want to spend, some of your time and attention and maybe money and deal with a relationship with that person in that way go ahead but you can also make a decision to just be like great the idea is out there.

10:34 I'm staying in my own lane. I'm keeping my eyes on my own page. And other people have to make their decisions. So there you go. That's how it is. This is not touching on the whole AI, scraping tools, taking everybody's ideas and using them. That's a whole different podcast. But maybe we'll address that some other time. But for right now, I thought maybe it would be helpful just to share these thoughts in case this is something that runs through your mind or something that happens to you in the future. It feels really not good when you do notice this happening. And I can say that you'll forget about it. You know, over time, you'll forget about it. This won't be the biggest worry in the world. And you just have to like, let go, let people be people, and you do your thing.

11:21 Because when you're doing your thing in alignment with the people that you to work with. I think that that works out in the long run, rather than trying to divert your attention into this negative confrontational space. So again, people may disagree with me, which is totally fine, but those are my thoughts on the matter. I hope that was helpful for you. If you want to stay in touch, I would love to send you my Practitioner Notes newsletter that goes out every Thursday. You can go to intheclinic.com or camillefreeman.com to get on that list, and I will send it to you the next time it goes out. All right, have a great day. Thanks so much for the work that you do.