Copying Someone Else's Idea

The Internet is rampant with information that is not original.

A lot of the stuff you read is somebody else's idea or work.

Have you ever read an e-book thinking, "I've read this before, but with a different explanation?"

In fact, many of the online courses you buy regarding Article Marketing advise you to pick an existing article and rewrite it in your own words to save you time.
Is this unethical?

Of course, if you took somebody else's work and republished it exactly how it was originally, then this would indeed be not only unethical, but downright illegal.

Most of the info we buy online is in some way, a recreation of another product or idea. The new author read somebody else's work, absorbed the idea and then went on to create a similar product in his own words.

Is this ethical?

In my humble opinion, if the new author does not take anything away from the original author, then there is no harm.

He doesn't mention the original author's name.
He doesn't mention the original author's product.
He doesn't mention the original author's website.

To the reader of the new product, its the same as any other product. He has no idea as to the origins of the product. He has no idea who the original author is.
In some cases, people (big time marketers) rewrite someone else's work and don't even hide the fact that its a rewrite (like the famous rewrite of Think and Grow Rich).
In fact, they market it as a plus.

In my opinion, as long as the original author remains unnamed and the end user has no idea who the original author is and what product it originally was, then there's no problem because no sales were taken away from the original author.

If you try and get on a high horse and claim that a rewrite of someone else's work would be stealing and unethical, then you would be right in one regard and wrong in another.

It would only be classed as stealing if the content remained the same. In other words, he took the original and republished it as his own. This is indeed illegal.

As for the idea, this cannot be copyrighted. This law is universal. No idea can be copyrighted. If it was, you'd have to arrest half the Internet.

Ok, what about ethics? Is it ethical to copy someone else's hard work and rewrite it as your own?

Again, if this was done in a way where the original author lost out in any way, then yes, it would be unethical.
But, if you rewrote the content in your own words and you never mentioned the original author's name or product name, then this would not be unethical.

After all, you are also putting in your own effort to creating your own work (although not as much as the original author) and therefore, this work would be legally and morally yours since it's in no way connected to the original author except for the idea.

If this was unethical then, again, most of the works on the net (especially in IM) would be unethical.
All those courses teaching you to take people's articles and to rewrite them would all be teaching stuff which was unethical.

So to conclude, I would take the logical approach and say:

a) If it's republished information without any changes then = Illegal and Unethical
b) If it's republished information with complete changes, but advertised as a rewrite of such and such product, then = Legal but Unethical
c) If it's republished information with no reference to the original work, then to its reader, its just a normal product. The fact that it is not plagiarized (pasted word for word) and not advertised as being a rewrite of such and such a product, then = Legal and Ethical

I say this because an idea cannot be copyrighted.

Taking the above points into consideration, I would like to see what other Warriors think about this subject and what their opinions are.

Please chip in with your thoughts,

JH