Plagiarism as defined in the Oxford Dictionary (click for source).

Yes, it is terribly sad that I have to remind people of this here, but please bear with me: I have been plagiarised more than ten times now, and on four occasions by people I had gone out of my way to help. In some cases, it is possible they simply did not realise when taking inspiration from someone turns into plagiarism, so it is worth explaining this a little here.

In some cases, entire blog posts have been lifted word for word. Other times, colleagues have made poor attempts at creating an original work by changing the odd word here and there. In other cases, the ideas and structure have been stolen in a way that is instantly recognisable to anyone seeing the two pieces of work, but not easily detectable by machines.

The most hurtful variation has been colleagues I helped stealing front-page marketing content. I helped them with their businesses, and they repaid me by trying to steal mine.

To be very clear:

Plagiarism covers not just direct copying, but also ideas and structure.

Please bear this in mind when looking at the websites of colleagues for inspiration. Also remember that a fake Rolex is never as nice as a genuine Casio. In trying to fake being someone else, you will also stunt your own growth as a writer.

Finally, please remember that all website content is protected by copyright unless stated otherwise. This means you cannot reproduce large sections of content or the entire thing without permission – and crediting the author does not negate the need to ask permission.

All identified plagiarists will be:

• Reported to Google and other search engines to have their content removed from search engines under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This will ordinarily result in a penalty for the entire domain, meaning you will then rank lower, not higher, on search engines.
• Reported to their hosting provider, who is also liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or similar legislation in the respective territory.
• Finally, and most critically in an industry such as ours: the plagiarist will be exposed on social media to my thousands of followers. Remember: it’s not libel if it’s true, and ultimately I can simply post the two links and invite my followers to judge.
• If you copy me, expect to be called out on it. If you copied me in the past and think you got away with it, you are wrong. If I know you copied me, you can trust that others will also know you copied me. I will also tell the truth to anyone who asks.

Remember: “Cut roses never last”