Is Theft of Your Intellectual Property Just a Part of Thought Leadership?

Guest Post: Is Theft of Your Intellectual Property Just a Part of Thought Leadership?

By: Vicki Rackner MD

Imagine you’re a thought leader opening an email from one of your best clients.  It includes a link to an article published in a national trade journal along with the note,  “Are any of these ideas worth considering?”

You click on the link, and the article offers 7 tips to achieve the precise outcome that you and your client are working towards.  You think the tips are great–with good reason. They’re all yours. But nowhere in the article were you mentioned.

That’s exactly what happened to me.  I help clients build business relationships with physicians.  My client–a financial advisor–sent me a link to an article published in Investment News.  The article was nothing more than a crude cut-and-paste job from one of my white papers.  The inclusion of my eclectic gift ideas made it absolutely clear that the author did not recreate my intellectual property by chance.

Further, I never had any contact with the author, and I neither granted permission to reproduce my intellectual property (IP) nor received attribution.

What should I do?  I was advised to inform the editor-in-chief that they had published stolen IP.  They immediately took the article down, and the expert lost his national platform.

I personally called the author; I wanted to understand how an author could steal another expert’s IP.  He was apologetic, and told me the ghostwritten hired to create the article never informed him of the    source.

Passing off the ideas of another as your own has a name.  Plagiarism. The ghostwriter plagiarized me, and the “author” plagiarized the ghostwriter.

I related the episode to my 16-year-old son who said, “If something’s on the Internet, people think it’s free to take.”

I think my son got it right.  Somehow there’s an idea that stealing ideas is not stealing.

Idea-lifting, like shoplifting, constitutes theft. Further this is not a victimless crime.  What if the reader is wrestling with the precise problem I can solve?  The reader has no way to contact me, and we both lose.

Before ascending to my throne of indignation, I had  to wonder: had I ever perpetrated this very same crime?  I read voraciously.  Could ideas that I think are original simply be a restatement of the ideas of another person?  I would never steal a book, but is an attributed summary of the author’s main points theft?

Retailers know that the best way to prevent theft is to make items more inaccessible; however, that lowers sales.  They understand that the war on merchandise shrinkage will never be won, and take steps to minimize the damage.

I could lock my intellectual property away and dole it out with great caution. That’s not how you position yourself as a thought leader.

Here are my take-aways:

• Copyright all IP with a Ⓒ.  Invite others to share your intellectual property with attribution.
• Give ideas names, and set up a Google alert for each phrase like medical magnetism.
• Respond to theft quickly.  Let the publisher know that they are publishing your content without attribution.  Send the author a cease and desist letter.
• Be respectful when quoting others.  Immediately–and publicly– offer an apology if you violate this one.
• Write all your content. I’ve never used a ghostwriter, and I never will.
• Create an IP policy within your organization.  Assure that staff members know and understand it.  Speak personally to people what participate in social media conversations as your brand emmissary.

Thought-lifting, like shoplifting, erodes your profits. Protect yourself.

Vicki Rackner MD helps her clients build business relationships with physicians.  Contact her at 425 451-3777 to see if she can help you acquire more physician clients. Go to www.targetingdoctors.com to sign up for free tips.