I got copied. Here's what I did (and didn't do).
This is kind of a vulnerable one because…guess what?
I got copied.
The Background
I came across this other attorney’s website. Yes, there are more than one of us that do what I do. And her sales page for a program that looked a lot like a program that I offer was full of language that I know that I created independently. My first reaction was, “Did I copy this person somehow?” Once I realized, “No, that's impossible,” I started to think about the possibility that maybe I was copied.
First, I took stock of what it was exactly that our two things had in common:
There's a phrase that was repeated throughout some of the things that I wrote that was also repeated throughout some of the things that she wrote.
There are also some features of her offer that are similar to features of my offer that I've kind of offered from the beginning.
For example, if you've purchased one of my contract kits, you know that all of my contract kits come with a companion video that explains what's in the contract and why it's there, how it protects you. Lo and behold, there's a video that goes along with each contract that this attorney offered.
Guess what? That part, the fact that her contracts also have videos, that's not protectable. So I kind of have to just push that to the side, I kept in the back of my mind, just as something you know, that might tip the scales in terms of did she see my stuff to build her stuff.
The Action
Then I went into a great tool called the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine is an online tool that will take snapshots of every web page on the internet, and will tell you what certain web pages looks like on specific dates. It doesn't have every single day in the history of man, but it does have certain dates and times, certain months, and certain years where they crawled the website and took a screen shot of what the website looks like then. In this case, it actually wasn't possible for me to use the Wayback Machine.
I also looked to see when her program started, because if it started after mine, again, that would show maybe potential copying happened there. But her website actually started way before mine, which also messed with me because I thought, again, I know that I created mine organically, but her program has been around longer. Now that doesn't mean that she couldn't have come across my stuff and reworded her pages to use some of my language. But, I will literally never know.
The Conclusion
This brings me to kind of the conclusion of what I did, which is just kind of sitting in with it for a little while. Because really, the only actionable thing is that little bit of language that I told you is repeated throughout. I'm not 100% sure that copying did happen here. It sure did feel like it when I was reading and looking through those things. But I'm still not 100% sure.
What I Didn’t Do
I did not call her out on Instagram.
I did not contact her angrily and tell her to take everything down.
I did not rush to file a lawsuit against her.
Those things are all very reactive, very emotional, and very in the moment. Before you react like that, I encourage you if you are copied to just take a beat, assess the way that I did. What came first what exactly was copied here? Is it protectable? Am I sure that mine is the original before doing any of those things?
Also, I would be really careful calling somebody out publicly like on Instagram, or sending them a really angry message on social media or on email before talking to an attorney (who’s probably going to tell you not to).
The biggest thing that I hear again and again and again from clients and potential clients is I don't know what I don't know. Where do I start? What do I do? I have built a quiz that will help you do that. This quiz is there to help you identify the vulnerabilities, the legal blind spots that exist in your business and will help you fix them. Head to spear-ip.com/quiz for access to that quiz!