What are your thoughts on copywriters blatantly swiping other copywriters self-promo pieces?

Someone just told me of a relatively new member here with an obvious swipe of my site.

Last time this happened there were literally paragraphs ripped off -- this time he's done a little more work and changed some words... but the layout and "feel" are the same.

Fair enough swiping has it's place, but this just seems like a no-go area to me.

What do you think?

That's not a swipe -- it's retyping, at best. More likely it's a passing familiarity with the copy & paste function.

"Swipe File" is a term designed to be misunderstood and abused. The idea was never to have a fill-in-the-blank template or crutch so the swiper never has to really understand copywriting, marketing or writing for that matter.

Most of the typists doing this simply prove they don't understand the basic concepts of copywriting.

The term "swipe" is probably misleading for someone new to the profession. (Trying to be generous here.) And that's aggravated by the whole PLC practice, which I think is garbage, but there are certainly plenty of people promoting it. So lifting a piece of writing wholesale and moving the words around a little seems to many newbies like a legitimate practice.

If it's a case of "where I had a compelling, benefit-oriented headline followed by five supporting bullets, he has one too," that strikes me as perfectly legit, but I don't suppose that's what you mean.

As to layout & feel, I would say the crime is proportionate to how distinctive the original look & feel are.

Kyle,

What a coincidence...

Here's the David Ogilvy quote I just read last night, "Nobody has ever built a brand by imitating someone else's advertising."

Well, I call it plagiarism. And I think he should be banned from this board.

Anne,

Now fancy that... you took the words right out of Mr. Ogilvy's mouth. Because that was the next line:

"Imitation may be the 'sincerest form of plagiarism,' but it is also the mark of an inferior person."

I'd say sending the guilty party a private message and give them a week to change the copy. After that, you will publicly out them.

My guess is the PM would handle the situation nicely 99.9% of the time.

My 2 cents,

Mike

Hey Mike,

that's exactly what I did with a newbie who swiped my site.
It's nearly word for word.

Except that I gave him the weekend to take it down.

When he puts it back up isn't my issue.

Let's hope it was just a newbie error and he corrects it...

and buys all of my products to make it up to me. :rolleyes:

And if that doesn't work, I say we all PM the culprit. That has worked well for a client of mine who has his photos stolen all the time. I mention it on the forum and in 10 minutes the swiper is begging for mercy because he gets scathing emails from 500 angry females. That'll just about do anyone in. Obviously, I have a low tolerance for it.

Here's part two of my post. I'm pretty sure you don't have this vaguely familiar Pierce-Arrow ad in your swipe file.

It's probably quite unique on the internet.