Inspiration vs. Plagarism aka. when is it okay to copy another seller?

[katakatica]

If the question brought you here, the short answer is (drumroll please)

NEVER. 

Directly copying someone else's gig (or work), including the descriptions, images, packages, FAQs is NEVER okay. Copying art as an artist, writing as a writer (and so on) is even worse and shows that you have no idea what you're doing. Yes, I've said it. 

Now you might be wondering - 'but what if I edit the description/picture/etc. a bit? What if I add stuff or take things away?' 

The answer is: it's still not cool. 

Technically, it might not count as a direct copy anymore (if it's not 100% the same) but you're still using plagarised content. Yes, even if someone on the internet told you that it's totally fine - it isn't.

Say, if I write :

 

Hey, I sell bears.

They are $10-$20 each.

I like bears. Do you? 

Buy my bears, Please.

 

And you write:

Hey, I sell bears.

They are $10-$20 each.

All bears are cute.

Buy my bears, Please.

Most of the content is still the same, right? 

 

Now, of course, there are rules on what's truly an issue and what isn't in the academic/etc. world, but that isn't what sellers will care about if they notice you snatching their writing/art. They will likely report you, and with how Fiverr is getting more and more strict... that might end up very poorly for you.

Now, you might be wondering... if I can't copypaste stuff, then what is okay? 

Gaining inspiration is perfectly fine. See, if you look at my profile and see that I have a gig that's doing well - no one's going to stop you from making a gig in the same category. (now, if you do the same for all of my gigs, even the flops, that's a bit creepy, but...) However, you still have to come up with your own content and images. 

Think of it as... window-shopping and thinking 'oh, that's fun, I want to do that, too' instead of 'oh, that looks great, let's copy it and I'll have customers'. 

No matter what the person on the internet that recommended Fiverr to you (if that was the case) is saying, COPYING someone else's work is not okay. Getting inspired by looking at it, however, is fine.

(note: it is also not nice to take 5-6 gigs together and use a paragraph each or something similar. By the time you're done with that, you might as well, you know, actually write you own description.)

 

(this post is mostly unedited, it's 8:00 and I haven't had caffeine yet.) 

[vickieito]

Great post @katakatica! I think the underlying reasons behind most of the plagiarism that I see on Fiverr platform is not inspiration, but laziness and lack of skill. If it were for inspiration, I'd feel flattered.

However, when I see someone plagiarizing my gig descriptions and it's clear that they really didn't put much effort into putting their gig together (i.e., researching and gaining inspiration), but rather slapped it together and published it as fast as possible to start making money, it's a bit disheartening. It's also really sad when you see that their skill level is not what they are advertising it to be. 

[katakatica]

50 minutes ago, vickieito said:

Great post @katakatica! I think the underlying reasons behind most of the plagiarism that I see on Fiverr platform is not inspiration, but laziness and lack of skill. If it were for inspiration, I'd feel flattered.

However, when I see someone plagiarizing my gig descriptions and it's clear that they really didn't put much effort into putting their gig together (i.e., researching and gaining inspiration), but rather slapped it together and published it as fast as possible to start making money, it's a bit disheartening. It's also really sad when you see that their skill level is not what they are advertising it to be. 

Thank you! I feel like 99% of the times it's just completely incompetence (sorry, but true.) Especially when selling your writing / art. It's just... weird to me that people genuinely think it'll work in the long run. However,  it seems to. Both sellers I found yesterday who copied my content (which is what inspired this post had several reviews! It's just... Why, you know?  

I was one of the first people to have a visual novel gig up - and saw several appear later. I see nothing wrong with people seeing gigs and going 'oh, this looks fun' and trying it out for themselves - it's normal (and fun!) but... stealing is just not OK.

I do hope this gets sorted out eventually - I mean, sure, copying is 'normal' to some extent, and expected, but it's certainly not OK. 

[finndev478]

When I created my gigs, I was looking at all of the succesful sellers and found some inspiration. More like "Dos and Donts". Some things just have proven effectively, otherwise not many sellers would the same thing. 

I strongly believe that when I started out, I got my first orders pretty quickly because I tried to have a unique thumbnail design that looked very different (but still somewhat professional and cleanly designed) from all the other thumbnails in my category. They all had a very homegenous look (code background stock image + Programming Language icon + some words about the gig) 
I went into a different direction and I think that made my start alot easier. 

 

[melanielm]

Excellent post! Sometimes I wonder if there is a Fiverr gig scraper program out there that automatically grabs lines from multiple gigs in the same category and splices them into something that is supposed to be an effective description. I find random sentences from my gigs copied sometimes, and I wonder if the other sentences are copied from elsewhere as the whole thing seems disjointed. Next time I think I'll check.

[katakatica]

1 hour ago, melanielm said:

Next time I think I'll check.

I'm almost certain that might be it. I've noticed before that the gigs aren't always even related to what I do exactly so it's quite possibly that there's something that just cuts bits and pieces together. Like a... Fiverr gig generator. 

 

[ahmed_faroquee]

On 8/18/2022 at 11:04 PM, katakatica said:

If the question brought you here, the short answer is (drumroll please)

NEVER. 

Directly copying someone else's gig (or work), including the descriptions, images, packages, FAQs is NEVER okay. Copying art as an artist, writing as a writer (and so on) is even worse and shows that you have no idea what you're doing. Yes, I've said it. 

Now you might be wondering - 'but what if I edit the description/picture/etc. a bit? What if I add stuff or take things away?' 

The answer is: it's still not cool. 

Technically, it might not count as a direct copy anymore (if it's not 100% the same) but you're still using plagarised content. Yes, even if someone on the internet told you that it's totally fine - it isn't.

Say, if I write :

 

Hey, I sell bears.

They are $10-$20 each.

I like bears. Do you? 

Buy my bears, Please.

 

And you write:

Hey, I sell bears.

They are $10-$20 each.

All bears are cute.

Buy my bears, Please.

Most of the content is still the same, right? 

 

Now, of course, there are rules on what's truly an issue and what isn't in the academic/etc. world, but that isn't what sellers will care about if they notice you snatching their writing/art. They will likely report you, and with how Fiverr is getting more and more strict... that might end up very poorly for you.

Now, you might be wondering... if I can't copypaste stuff, then what is okay? 

Gaining inspiration is perfectly fine. See, if you look at my profile and see that I have a gig that's doing well - no one's going to stop you from making a gig in the same category. (now, if you do the same for all of my gigs, even the flops, that's a bit creepy, but...) However, you still have to come up with your own content and images. 

Think of it as... window-shopping and thinking 'oh, that's fun, I want to do that, too' instead of 'oh, that looks great, let's copy it and I'll have customers'. 

No matter what the person on the internet that recommended Fiverr to you (if that was the case) is saying, COPYING someone else's work is not okay. Getting inspired by looking at it, however, is fine.

(note: it is also not nice to take 5-6 gigs together and use a paragraph each or something similar. By the time you're done with that, you might as well, you know, actually write you own description.)

 

(this post is mostly unedited, it's 8:00 and I haven't had caffeine yet.) 

So, nice post indeed@katakatica You said it perfectly.

But it is also true that there is nothing in this world which is completely identical. If you do similar things, it might be a chance to match some points partially with others.  

 

Suppose, Mr. "X" is a renowned Website designer & he is an expert on WordPress CMS. Another person Mr. "Y" is also a good Website designer and expert on WordPress CMS. In this case, both person's services' keywords, tags, and descriptions might be sporadically the same. For this, we can not blame the person "Y".

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by ahmed_faroquee

[katakatica]

2 hours ago, ahmed_faroquee said:

For this, we can not blame the person "Y".

 

This is where personality/personal tone shines through. They might be SIMILAR (tags might even be the same), but there will be things that will be very different. It might be how formal one person is (and how informal the other is), or the structure of their descriptions/etc. 

The difference here is that when you look at the two gigs, they still won't be identical - Y's gigs might have different pricing, packages that are titled different, etc. Their description might have a different pacing of writing. Still the same tags and message, but different personalities. If someone (like many have done to me) just copies someone else's gig word to word (or puts a 'spin' to it) it will still feel like it was written by the original person! But yes, I do see your point! 

[mhrudro]

Fiverr doesn't allow copy-past anywhere. Plagiarism in Fiverr is a fatal mistake.

Thank You.

[vickieito]

23 minutes ago, mhrudro said:

Plagiarism in Fiverr is a fatal mistake.

Plagiarism anywhere is not a good idea.

It hurts the person whose content is being stolen, with very little repercussions on the person stealing the information. Even if a person does get caught for plagiarism, it isn't fatal. Only mistakes that kill you are fatal.

[mabelma]

On 1/30/2023 at 4:52 PM, vickieito said:

Plagiarism anywhere is not a good idea.

It hurts the person whose content is being stolen, with very little repercussions on the person stealing the information. Even if a person does get caught for plagiarism, it isn't fatal. Only mistakes that kill you are fatal.

So true! You should allow yourself to be inspired by things but never steal, copy, or remake work from others unless direct permission has been granted. My rule of thumb is to let myself look at references, make as many sketches as I can, break all of what I like down, and then put away the original references and let myself be inspired by my notes and sketches instead. There is a sort of dilution of plagiarism when one reaches their own conclusions on why something works or doesn't work and creates something new out of that image. Another great tip is to never limit yourself to only one thing for inspiration instead pick 10 or 20 things and let yourself be inspired by all of them, very often the combination of so many things allows you to create something completely different, unique and new that is still able to hold the special characteristics of those things that inspired you in the first place. I'm mostly talking about illustrations and art since that is my main area of expertise but I've been able to do it with music as well, where I can create new songs that are original but still feel held together by an inspired research into the kind of music that I like. Kinda like putting fruits into a blender and then coming out with a super tasty smoothie.