Thought Plagiarism and How It Threatens Creative Platforms

When does copying end and the destruction of ideas begin?

Every platform has its self-seekers — that is, those who try to game the system by milking the creativity of others and doing as little as possible on their end. Money and fame are usually the motivating factors for this.

They are the mimickers, the copiers, the type that ‘steal’ an idea and rework it in a way that rides on the coattails of the originator. They don’t care about attribution. They don’t wait and give the content distance in time. They’ll cash in as quickly and as frequently as possible. This is because to them, the internet is all about free speech.

Sometimes, they’ll go as far as calling it working smarter and not harder — except, the reality is that it’s leaning toward a black hat attempt to get as much money and attention as possible without adding value to the platform that’s paying them.

We’re not talking about those moments of mind-melding experiences where two creators happen to have the exact same idea or thought wave around the same time. It happens. Those moments are often done in isolation and innocence, making the similarities forgivable.

The difference between innocent creators and self-seekers is that the latter will exhibit an identifiable trend. They don’t just have one-offs — they have a history of content that seems too alike to be coincidental.

When enough people do this with money and fame as the main motivator, they drown out the original voices and contribute to the image of sameness on a platform.

The Misrepresentation of Stealing

The idea that “great artists steal” is often a defensive line self-seekers take in order to justify their actions.

However, it’s an incomplete misquote that can be traced back to T.S. Eliot:

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.”

— T.S. Eliot, “The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism”

If we take this excerpt as a whole, T.S. Eliot advocates for the idea of stealing — but the quality of that theft is defined by the uniqueness of its iteration. It’s this uniqueness that defines the idea of originality.

Direct plagiarism is the lowest form of theft — something we learn about in high school and university, with our teachers and lecturers often advocating us to re-tell stories in our own voices. Many of us never figured out what that voice sounds like. Many of us just moved on with life.

With the explosion of content-rich platforms, figuring out how to create original content requires the development of this voice.

Self-seekers don’t have the ability to do this on their own. This often results in works that are blatant copies of the originals. Or, the self-seekers string together ideas around the same premise that makes the work feel original — but the content is oddly too familiar.

The audience viewing the work may not recognize all the original sources, but at some point, someone will.

Why Is This a Problem?

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

— Mark Twain, “Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review”

The issue with self-seekers is that they stop the turning of the kaleidoscope that Mark Twain describes. If we follow on the premise that there are no new ideas, it’s the combination and the constant change of the combinations that create the uniqueness of an output.

Self-seekers often attract more self-seekers, resulting in content homogenization within a particular niche or platform. Each iteration is often a bad copy of the one before it. The quality eventually degrades to a point where it becomes clickbait in nature because the formula works but offers a low experience and no additional value.

We’ve seen it happen to the listicles. Reaction videos and compilations are now rampant on YouTube. Instagram is flooded with pouty selfies that no one can seem to get rid of. Not everyone makes money from it, but at least they might get a shot at fame by being the same.

When enough people do it, it’s the original creator that loses out the most, and doing this turns platforms and niches into trainwrecks.

The Idea of Thought Plagiarism

There is a common misunderstanding that plagiarism is only limited to the space of direct copies. However, self-seekers are more sophisticated plagiarists that do the bare minimum to transform original ideas.

They change their copies just enough — but they’re essentially the bad poets that T.S. Eliot describes.

Thought plagiarism is the act taking the likeness of another person’s content, maintaining the thing that made it successful — whether it be the subject matter, the title structure, or essence of the actual product — and remaking it as a potential substitute to the original.

The copy can then be seen as a potential stand-in, resulting in the theft of an audience’s limited attention.

The act of shadowing is often intentional and fuelled by the success of the original. Some self-seekers become good at identifying success right at the crux of a potential apex. They jump right in to cash in on and contribute to what we commonly and unfortunately call a trend.

The biggest problem for the original content creator occurs when the self-seekers gain more traction and attention for their act of theft.

Final Thoughts on the Issue

Innovation and uniqueness begin when a content creator turns the kaleidoscope of ideas. The motivation behind this act of turning is often fueled by something internal and greater than money and fame.

Money helps with creative sustainability, and fame is a by-product of being recognized for the work.

When platforms put systems in place to deter the chase for fame and fortune, and instead use them as rewards for creative and unique outputs, the overall quality of content and the audience it attracts increases.

For creators, there will always be the issue of self-seekers, no matter where you take your content or how a good a system is at detecting and deterring such people. Self-seekers will always find a way to bypass the algorithms and the rules. They’re the equivalent of the annoying malware of society.

If they can’t be reported for whatever reason, the only way to get rid of them is to keep turning your kaleidoscope. At some point, your work will become too hard to replicate — until a smarter and more sophisticated self-seeker appears.

As a content creator, it’s our sad reality — but it also challenges us to increase our quality of thought, creativity, and delivery. It’s better to be the trendsetter than the follower.

So, if you’re a new content creator, do your own thing and figure out your own voice. This is your chance to truly be you. People can try and mimic you, but they can never be what you are. The original can never be fully copied, and the copiers will never have the ability to truly create.

They will forever be following in your trail or others’ trails rather than creating their own work. It’s better to be in the lead than to end up being a copier of copies.