Have You No Originality?

You just had a great idea, so you started a group, opened a contest, or created a forum where like-minds of a topic can gather to discuss some great "it." You were excited about your idea, perhaps went to the trouble of creating headers, using emoticons and colors in your "fun" frame of mind.

Suddenly, you have people sneering at you, blaming you for your obvious lack of originality when you had no idea there was already something similar available. They'll say you should have checked first and not bothered going ahead with your plan. Maybe you did research, found an open market, but took so long setting it up, someone beat you to it in the meantime so now it appears you've copied. They'll laugh and add "liar" to their "copycat" chants.

Or what if you did copy someone else's idea? You came across something that you thought clever, and said to yourself, "Hey! I should do that too."

Again, there are the naysayers telling you that you're "stealing" someone else's idea and putting you down.

You feel as though you've been propelled back to grade school, and the bossy girl is standing over you with her little gaggle of girly-goons saying, "You just have a Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox because I do! Copycatter!"

Now, here you are, again feeling the need to defend yourself. First you stand strong, but under pressure, you begin to fold and might even feel guilty: enough that you wonder if you should give in to their pressure; enough that the joy you felt suddenly feels foolish; enough that you start to doubt yourself in other areas. You look at your stories or poems and all you can see is "lack of originality."

Well, put your mind at rest.

Ideas cannot be copyrighted

There is an office supply store chain called Staples, and they were doing a rousing business until Office Depot began to give them a real run for their money. There were all kinds of "depots" opening up at the time. Food Depot (which didn't last long), Home Depot, and in some places, Auto Depo. Some would say Office Depot was unoriginal in selling office supplies, as well as for taking advantage of the Depot craze. Others would call it savvy business acumen. In any case, next thing you know, Staples has a subtitle: The Business Depot. Should they now be accused of lacking originality, or applauded for being a smart competitor?

Or how about writing sites? There are all kinds on the net, but there must have been an original one - so should everyone else have just not bothered? Personally, I'm glad the creators of this site "bothered" because they're blowing the competition away. What if they'd said "Oh, no. We can't do that. There's already one available"?

Is there only one Writing magazine? Only one book publisher? Only one brand of anything?

Look at the genres offered here: there are dozens. Going by the "there is already one out there" mentality, shouldn't that also mean there are only dozens of stories available here - or in the world? On this site alone, hundreds of thousands of items have been created, and we represent only a small portion of the writing available on the internet, which is only a portion of the writing available in the world. Should you stop writing because there is already enough out there?

You know the answers to these questions, and no matter how hard you try, you will be hard pressed to come up with anything of which there is only one.

Think back to a little over ten years ago when Bill Gates released MSN - new competition for AOL. Just three years later, after creating a product that was a combination of operating system and software, Gates was being accused of monopolization - of not giving competitors the opportunity to take part in selling to consumers. By 2001, Microsoft was ordered to share its application programming interfaces with third parties.

Monopolization is illegal

Of course, while that means there is nothing wrong with offering the same service or product as another, or writing in the same genre, it isn't a license to plagiarize. Nor does that mean you should run out and start copying everyone else just because you can. Offer your services because you know there is a need, or because yours is a little different.

Variety is the spice of life

As for the naysayers who jump on bandwagons and tell you how horrid you are for your lack of originality, shrug it off. I've come up with ideas that I've seen others copy and implement just as well or better. Not once did I put them down. There are times when I've felt proud to see an idea of mine put to even greater use, or felt a little sad that I didn't think of that one extra step myself that set the other person's so-called "copying" apart. But under no circumstances did that give me the right to shame anybody into giving up my idea. Nobody has the right to do that to you either.

There will still be those who disagree. They will stand on their hypothetical playgrounds, waving their fists, puffing out their chests and hurling insults - but at least you know, that like the playground bully, it's all bravado. Remind them that imitation is the best form of flattery and let them rant if they must. If their ranting gets out of hand and you feel overwhelmed by their criticisms, report them.

So whether you intentionally copied another (which does happen) or whether you and another both had the same idea but he or she beat you to it (which is more common), don't give in. Stand strong and show that you are a worthy competitor who can't be strong-armed into allowing others a monopolization.




Note: A few people aren't clear on what the difference is between using an idea and using someone else's work. If you use someone else's work and call it your own, that is plagiarism and is punishable by law. If you use an idea - outright or as inspiration - that is NOT plagiarism. If someone else chooses to write an article on how ideas cannot be copyrighted, they do not need to ask my permission. If, however, they write it exactly as I wrote it, or take lines out and use them as I used them (without citing my article as the source), or simply change a few little words here or there, but keep it the same otherwise, that would be plagiarism.