Good that they’re patient!

K

I guess for me, I don’t worry much about the stuff I post. It’s there for the taking. However, I have had no problems yet with people blatantly copying my stuff and claiming it as their own. I’m quite sure I’d feel right pissed off if someone did that. Especially if they did it to turn a profit.

You’re right about the time it takes to create stuff. A lot of these lessons I have online now simply existed as templates on my computer before. Sometimes I spend more time prepping the lesson to make it accessible to everyone than I do actually writing the post.

What you’ve suggested above in your post is, in my mind, seems fine: a wee bit of tweaking here and there, teaching others how to adapt and do more authentic work with any static material BUT… and it’s a big BUT, you do have to be careful – it’s one thing to tweak someone’s ideas and build a new concept for your personal classes, it’s another thing to blog about them…

As you did above, linking or referencing is absolutely, absolutely vital and respectful. (By the way, I did a blog lesson based on one of Ken Wilson’s ideas too so yes, it can be done, however I also went to great pains to make sure that he was attributed correctly and that anyone reading that post would understand that they should buy his book if they’d like more of ‘same’).

There is a very real danger in that so many people walk into bloggin’ /online work with no clue – actually many come in thinking “lemme see what I can get from being online in the shortest amount of time, not at all what I can give to my community…” (it’s horrid but it’s true, you’ll see in time what I mean).

Anyway, through the last six months we’ve also seen a number of copycat website/blogs popping up, unfortunately, and not just copycatting ELT stuff – one post was when someone blatantly took an article from a popular HR blog, adapted it slightly in order to advertise TEFL jobs… The post was removed when some of us told him this was not kosher… / one of the bloggers threatened to report his blog to the blog it was stolen from.

Work, energy, creativity has to be respected otherwise those who are hardworking, energetic, are prolific givers and extreme creators will simply not share at all anymore.

Like Sue I create materials but in my case (apart from freelance work for publishers), I also sell materials through a website (yup, sell) and these are both trademarked and copyrighted.

The thing that a lot of people don’t really get (which is why Sean Banville ends up with people stealing his stuff so often) is that no, if someone comes up with an original idea it wasn’t a brainstorm moment, head on over to a computer, slap something together in 5, then put it online – years and years went into the development.

But now it’s online… that any old sundry should come along and think hey! way, cool, I’ll make money out of this… I guess it boils down to ethics.

Developing good professional materials takes absolutely FOREVER –

I award and am amazed by people who make all their work available for free – I have a blog where I do this (the ideas there are all creative commons) however I distinctly chose the pay-for-it option on my main artistic work because I want to be very clear that not only do I respect my time, creativity and the absolutely amazing effectiveness of said materials (LOL) but… honestly, even though I charge pennies, I really want to make sure that the end-user understands that and treats it with the respect it deserves.

Anyhooo… I better get on with my work, nice chatting to you again.

Take care,
Karenne

Think we’ll just have to agree to differ on this one.

Will some people abuse our generosity and steal our material? Sure. It’s the name of the game. However, there are just as many people, more in my opinion, that will respect the time and effort committed to the creation of something and give recognition and respect where it is do. I’m sure Abbie was criticized by the authors who got very little money from all the books their publishing house sold, but we didn’t see authors start living on the street.

I definitely respect your opinion, but I think your fears are probably unfounded here. The post is meant to be playful rather than serious and I think most people will pick up on that. For the few that don’t, they’re only a drop in the pond.

First of all, I do appreciate that you are just using steal in a playful sense here; however, as bloggers, we write for a global audience and I’m not sure that the penny on that one will drop with everyone. From what I gather, some cultures don’t pay an awful lot of heed to the notion of copyright.

I’m not sure you can claim rights on ideas in the broader sense, either; at least in the context we’re talking about. I think it depends whether or not the idea was common currency in the first place and how far removed from the original idea the end result is.

I agree that the lessons you’ve provided are different to the originals, but then again, I didn’t write the originals and I’ve no idea how much effort or originality went into producing them. I think the only person who can call whether or not they are far enough removed from the original to amount to something different altogether, is the person who wrote the original materials.

I do think you have to be careful creating derivative works in situations where materials are copyrighted. Simply giving credit might not be enough to keep some people happy. I’d personally be inclined to run anything based on copyrighted materials past the original author first, before doing anything with it.

I’m just using steal in playful sense here, not in the sense that you actually should steal them. I think that is probably clear from the gist of the post. Like I said, give credit where credit is do. If I use onestopenglish in class, they and any other teachers watching see the logo and might stop by. The same goes for crediting my inspiration for the lessons I gave. If you come across my site you will see the links to the original authors as well.

Perhaps you’re right, the phrase “a little tweaking” does suggest only superficial changes to the material to make it your own and it really wouldn’t be in that case. What do you think about the lessons I provided compared to the originals?

I’m not sure you can claim rights on ideas though, can you? I don’t think you’re suggesting that though. I guess I’m just thinking of the lessons I provided as an example, but they took the same idea or format and used completely new material and added or took away something.

Thanks a bunch for providing all that free stuff. I wouldn’t want to see it turn into a pay site and I hope I’m not giving that impression here.

Take inspiration from other people’s ideas, by all means, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.

The phrase “with a little tweaking” suggests wholesale borrowing rather than deriving inspiration, and could well venture into territory that many authors would consider to be plagiarism.

I would doubt that most people who write ELT materials make much money from them (I certainly don’t!), but by the same token, what money they do make helps put food on the table and pay the bills.

I share practically all the materials that I create for free for non-commercial use, but (and it’s a very big _but_) I don’t permit people to adapt and remix them.

What would happen if people started “stealing” my materials wholesale is that I’d have to stop sharing them and charge for them instead.

I would imagine most online publishing sites who provide free teaching materials are in the same boat. They rely on the small amount of revenue generated by visitors to subsidise the cost of running the site and the time and effort it takes to produce the materials (i.e, time when they would otherwise be out earning money teaching or lecturing).

Feel free to use my materials in your lessons, by all means; that’s what they are there for. Feel free to tweak them for your own personal use, also. Steal them, & you kill the golden goose.