A little while back, I offhandedly posted about coming across a press release for a certain game that directly lifted most of its copy from my SNS timeline; this sort of thing's happened to me a few times now, including as outer package text on a retail product, and I mostly regarded them as a source of blithe amusement... if they really felt they had to take that, then let em have it,, basically.
I guess someone must've shared my post in their group chat or whatever, because I was soon hit up here and elsewhere by a handful of people, mostly anons but also some very loose acquaintances, who all had stories about stumbling upon or being informed of words from their SNS, blogs, and other non-commercial public writings being lifted wholesale by or for commercial endeavours within their sphere of interest: PR/store copy, package text, artbook/guidebook content, even in-game text. I can't say I was terribly surprised by just how frequently this happens, but I was taken aback by the realisation that so many people were tolerant of having their words stolen because they didn't see a way to broach the topic that wouldn't be interpreted as dramamongery, or egotism, or just seen as gauche... hence why it keeps happening, I suppose, and why certain repeat offenders are able to continue to sell things back to the communities from which pilfer.
I wasn't quite sure whether to bring this up again in a public setting or to just let people vent in private, or if there was any way to allude to specific situations without outing those who'd confided their incidents, but I do want to try and contribute something halfway-useful before Cohost goes under, so I figured I'd bring it up in a generalised way—this isn't a callout post or a sub or a directive to anybody in particular, but if you've directly engaged in, or are party to, this specific form of plagiarism, then allow me to outline why it's both unethical and also just hacky:
