This week I wanted to talk about something that hits home for all of us: plagiarism and copyright.
A few days ago, fellow writer Andi Bitay, posted a Note on Substack that made me want to pull my hair out. Another “creator” had shamelessly copied one of her Notes that had gone viral and published it as her own. Word for word, top to bottom, without a single credit or mention, riding the wave of someone else’s hard work. She didn’t even bother changing the emoji 😉
I spent half my coffee exposing the masterpiece in public and the other half reporting it to Substack.
I have no clue who our main character is but I know the plot all too well because it’s happened to me more than once. I know that feeling of helplessness and, above all, frustration when nobody does anything and we all just look up, waiting for someone else to step in, waiting for the others to do the right thing.
But who the heck are the others?
In the digital world, offences somehow feel less serious and usually come with fewer consequences:
Haters and keyboard warriors have zero accountability (I quit X because the toxicity there is contagious).
Hate debates on social media are just the way people communicate nowadays.
Cyberbullying has become the new parents’ nightmare (just look up for the “roasting” trend).
And plagiarism often gets brushed off because, from the outside, “well, it’s not really stealing.” Until it happens to you and you watch someone else cash in on your creativity and grow at your expense.
If people behaved in real life the way they do online, the world would be a clusterf$ck; a scene in a Tarantino movie. It’s wild how semi-decent people hide behind a screen and turn into complete savages. The culture of instant gratification is everywhere, even if it means stepping on others to get there. Whatever the cost.
Well, for Katherine the cost was more than 8,000 subscribers. In less than 24 hours, Substack suspended her account. Years of work and effort, gone. All for a handful of stolen likes and a cheap moment of glory. As Bren put it in one of the comments on my Note, she took the expression “steal like an artist” for face value and paid the full price.
A few years ago, I regretted not speaking up.
I was working for the biggest cosmetics company in the world in a senior role. It was the start of the pandemic and I was in a meeting in Tokyo with the Japanese team and the American big bosses who’d flown in from New York for the usual Asia tour. Sales were collapsing and Japan was one of the hardest-hit markets in the region. They needed a drastic move to turn things around, so the VP in Japan decided to present an innovative “Brand Rejuvenation Plan” in the executive meeting.
The plan involved several measures: campaigns with beauty influencers, TikTok videos, new products… and the cherry on top: getting rid of the BAs (Beauty Advisers) who were 40+. Just like that. Offering them a “generous early retirement package” because they weren’t adapting to technology and the new trends. Their look, fashion and way of working had become outdated. They were no longer qualified because that’s what their birth date said on their ID.
I looked around the room. No hidden camera. This was the business plan of a Fortune 500 company: ditch the forty-somethings for being forty-somethings. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
I tried to make eye contact in the room: a look of complicity, an uncomfortable smile, perhaps someone frowning or rolling their eyes or maybe even a nervous laugh. Nothing. Nada. My boss nodded with a poker face. My boss’s boss was taking notes (I would have loved to read the memo…). And my boss’s boss’s boss was asking about the numbers. I assume she was counting how many Japanese forty-somethings we were talking about so she could calculate how much “rejuvenation” would hit the bottom line in the P&L. Money talks.
We finished the meeting. I was half pissed off, half relieved I hadn’t blown out my 40 candles yet. We went for an incredible sushi lunch at an expensive restaurant and talked about the weather. Another Tarantino scene. The subject of rejuvenation never came up; not in that context anyways.
After the meeting I spoke privately to Rina, the Director from HR and raised my concerns. I said I didn’t think firing those women after decades in the company (Japanese employees are extremely loyal and many spend their entire career working for the same employer) was either ethical or legal. She looked awkward and said they would discuss it internally. And that was the end of it and the beginning of the Rejuvenation Plan.
Five years later I still think about that meeting because I regret not doing more. The sushi was delicious, but it didn’t take away the bitter taste you get when you stay silent and just stand there looking like a fool.
Nobody said anything.
Nobody did anything.
I looked up, waiting for someone with more weight to step in.
And I guess the person above me was doing the same, waiting for “the person above them” to do something and off goes to chain of complacency and doing freaking nothing.
Change starts with yourself.
That day in the Tokyo office I learned my lesson.
You don’t wait to see what the person above does, and you don’t pass the ball to the neighbour next door because “it’s not your responsibility.”
Too often we stay quiet because we think we can’t change anything, because we’re a small fish in a sea of sharks, or because we don’t have the power to influence the outcome.
And the truth is, if we’re looking for an excuse to stay silent and be complacent, we’ll find a hundred reasons to do nothing and look the other way. And if we are not part of the solution, we continue being a part of the problem.
The hard part is to keep looking until you find the one reason that makes you raise your hand, take a stand, and show up regardless of what the person above does.
The person above is you.
The person above is me.
Change starts right here. Right now.
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