I was contacted last week by the owner of a well-regarded training program for Virtual Assistants.

The owner is not a Virtual Assistant herself, but rather is an expert with an extensive background and expertise in the subject she teaches (exactly as it should be).

It had come to this program owner’s attention via a Google Alert that a new Virtual Assistant training/certification organization was offering a course with the exact same curriculum.

What was particularly disturbing to the owner of this well-respected, well-known training program is that:

1. The listed instructor for the course at the new training organization is a current student of this program owner.
2. This student/instructor is taking material from this program owner’s course and converting it to hers.
3. This new training organization is charging $150 per class, so the four class series is priced at $600, almost exactly what the original program owner charges, which would lead people to believe they are getting something of value taught by an expert.

The student-all-of-a-sudden-turned-instructor in question is a new Virtual Assistant with no background or experience in the course she is now teaching.

What is also interesting and ironic is that the owner of the new training organization has posted in online forums that she would never pay anyone to learn this thing her own new training organization is now offering and charging for.

She stated she would instead do her own research and teach herself, the underlying sentiment seeming to be that she begrudges anyone charging for training, and she presumably thinks they should be doing it for free.

Funny how her thinking has miraculously changed now that it’s her own pockets the money goes into.

The program owner who contacted me about this is not only disturbed that this Virtual Assistant would take material in this way, but also concerned that unfortunate students won’t realize they are learning from someone who is not an expert, but has only taken a course herself–in fact, hasn’t even finished it at this point.

It appears the owner of the new training program didn’t bother to do any due diligence in hiring this instructor to ensure that students were being provided something of value.

One can’t help but wonder what other instructors were indiscriminately hired without any regard to background, qualification or expertise, and whether they might be using another person’s intellectual property as well.

Sadly, this isn’t an isolated incident. I know of several instances where this exact same thing has happened.

Besides the dishonesty and stealing, what also bothers me  is seeing new VAs who haven’t achieved any level of success or experience and expertise in their own businesses turning around and selling crap to their colleagues.

Why is it, I wonder, they can’t just concentrate on their own businesses? My guess is because it’s not easy growing a business and God forbid they should have to <gasp> actually work hard at anything.

So anyway, this got me to thinking about how much people understand about intellectual property.

Even outside of that, are there any basic principles of right and wrong that folks easily identify here? What do you think?

Imagine my surprise to see an article I wrote in 2004 that is well-known throughout our industry published in a release with another person’s name in the byline.

Here is a PDF of the screenshot of the release submitted by one “Johnny Law” from Philippines Call Center which contains just about 100% verbatim content from my article, “How to Succeed in the Virtual Assistant Industry:” http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/infringements/OfficeWire/120909InfringingRelease.pdf

Here is the original link (article has since been removed): http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=50855&catid=93

Here is my original article: http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/howtosucceed.htm

I tell ya, these Philippine agencies are quickly making a very bad name for themselves in our industry. And it’s too bad because it hurts the reputations of whatever honest, ethical, legitimate Philippines agencies may be out there.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen so many of them stealing other peoples’ content, committing all kinds of infringements and engaging in unethical practices that I don’t trust a single one of them.

I’ve emailed Official Wire and asked for the release to be removed. Hopefully they will honor the request expediently. We shall see. In the meantime, know that the Philippine agency responsible for posting my content is dishonest and unethical. If they engage in unlawful acts such as this, they are not to be trusted in any manner and should be avoided.

UPDATE 12/9/09: I heard back from the Official Wire site owner, Greg Smith. His comment: “Contact the author.” Um, I AM the author. I wonder if this Greg Smith is familiar with the DMCA? He is as liable for publishing unauthorized copyrighted content as the Philippine agency who submitted it and his site can be taken down. Why do these people need to make it so hard? Why can’t they just be honest? I swear.

If I were you, you may want to also avoid Office Wire. I’m not familiar with them, but on closer inspection, it appears that the site may even be one of those spam/scam sites. Most legitimate sites like this will remove infringing content without too much hassle once it is brought to their attention. You have to wonder why one would choose to favor a dishonest company over the rightful owner and author of the stolen content.

UPDATE 12/10/09: Well, this Greg Smith was a total and utter a-hole. Seriously. Which again leads me to believe that his “press release” site is some kind of front for other intentions. In an email exchange, it turns out he is in the U.K. and seemed to believe he was outside of any kind of copyright governances whatsoever. He flat out refused to remove the release and it became quite obvious he has a huge chip on his shoulder about Americans, stating that “you Americans think you rule the world.” So I asked him, since I’m always curious about how on earth some peoples’ minds work, what does being American have to do with expecting people to be honorable and ethical? I asked him why he would choose to cater to a dishonest company that submitted a plagiarized release over the actual author’s request when he could simply remove it? It’s his site after all. He had no response other than some circular argument that he didn’t have to remove it and to contact the author.

With some help from the awesome plagiarism removal expert Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, we found that OfficeWire.com is hosted by a U.S. company and thus subject to DMCA provisions. I emailed them today and they very quickly took action and the offending release has now been removed from the site. Easy peasy and also saving my IP attorney dollars for more important matters.

Did my regular monthly plagiarism sweep earlier this week and discovered that a Lorean Tuff has taken whole sections of content from my personal business Home page and placed it on her site here: http://www.myownvirtualassistant.com/Home_Page.html

Here’s a PDF of the screenshot taken (note the yellow highlighted parts indicating the infringing use of my copy).

Here’s a PDF of my personal business Home page with the sections she took highlighted in yellow:

Also noticed she had appropriated EA to VA’s graphic and alerted Syndi Craig Hart to that fact as well, which Sydni was none too pleased about.

I placed a call to Ms. Tuff, informing her of the infringement and letting her know that I expected it to be removed immediately. That was two or three days ago and she still has not removed it even though she assured me it would be taken down that day.

I will be having a DMCA filed to take her site down. In the meantime, you might want to run through her site and see if she’s taken anything from you.

So here’s a sticky situation that is occurring more and more often:

A newcomer to the industry enters the scene and proudly announces her new business name and tagline to the world. Problem is, it is identical or nearly identical to the business name and/or tagline of an established colleague.

Your business name and tagline is part of your brand identity, which is an important and valuable intellectual asset.

It helps creates a unique and distinctive identity of your business in the marketplace. It helps facilitate brand awareness, differentiation and word-of mouth advertising for your business.

When someone copies your name or tagline or uses a derivative, it creates confusion and unfair competition.

While registering your tradename affords you the greatest legal rights and recourse, it is not required and it’s not the only way to exercise your rights and protect your turf. There are common law protections as well that protect intellectual property owners.

The law does require, however, that you actively protect your trade name (business name), trademarks, servicemarks, etc., (e.g., taglines) or you lose the rights to lay claim to them.

What that means is you must go after those who infringe upon your business name, tagline and other trademark property or you lose right to them. And if you are serious about your business (it’s your livelihood after all), that’s not something you take lightly. It, therefore, becomes necessary for you to keep a vigilant eye open for infringements of this nature.  The eyes and ears of your colleagues are often very helpful in this effort.

Which also means you do not want to be the newcomer who is doing the infringing on someone else’s tradename and/or other intellectual property. You can be easily sued and held liable and ordered to pay thousands of dollars, on top of having to start all over from scratch.

Do you really have the time, money, energy and resources to fight a costly legal battle in another state or even country with someone who has every right to go after you and protect their intellectual property and very important business interests? And if you don’t have the money to defend yourself, they can win by default judgment.

Stealing from others and engaging in the unethical practice of infringing on the tradename/trademark/intellectual property of others is a no-win situation.

But forget legalities for the moment.

Let’s look at this from a moral and ethical standpoint.

Sometimes this is difficult, but it becomes less so when you first ask yourself the question: “How would I feel if this happened to me.”

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SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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1. Would you be upset if someone new to the industry started using your business name? Why or why not?
2. If you saw someone new using a colleague’s business name, tagline/slogan or other brand identity, would you say something to that newcomer? Why or why not?
3. Would you let a colleague know if you saw someone new using their established business name, etc., a close enough derivative of it to be confusing? Why or why not?

Here’s another thief who has stolen, verbatim, my home page text: Your Virtual Admin at http://yourvirtualadmin.blogspot.com/

Here’s my site:  http://www.therelief.com.

Here’s a PDF of their blog home page with my stolen content:

http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/infringements/YourVirtualAdmin/012409Home.pdf

This Virtual Assistant’s name is Maria. She was contacted about the infringement to give her a chance to remove it from her blog/site before being posted here. She chose to hang up abruptly.

Here’s a hint, guys. Stealing content from other Virtual Assistants is copyright infringement. It’s against the law and it’s also not a great way to make your introduction into the Virtual Assistant world. It’s even dumber to steal it from an industry leader with a widespread audience.

So take a hint, Maria, if you want to save yourself some grief and possible lawsuits: quit stealing and remove my content from your site immediately. Otherwise, you will be hearing from my intellectual property attorney. And once I have to go to that length and you waste my time and money to get you to do what is right, I go for blood.