Is it bad to spill any guru's secrets online?

I don't think it's okay, and I already expect it to happen with my products before I even launch them.

Well ... you can't say, there're tons of Scamers out there claim they have the secret for making millions dollars overnight (I saw so many on those informercial on TV that I got so sick off). However, I think there are many gurus out there who do have some secret that most people don't know about. I mean, not eveybody on this planet is a genius that can come up with a creative money making idea... or some people just don't have the balls to try new ideas because they afraid that they will lose money or waste their time... just my thought:rolleyes:

At the end of the day, you can't copyright an idea. You can copyright the expression of the idea. So to take someone's expression and copy it word-for-word is against copyright law.

To take someone's idea and repackage it certainly IS NOT illegal.

Not only that, but to completely AVOID using someone else's idea in your own product is, in my view, virtually IMPOSSIBLE. I mean, any time someone creates a product and shows their buyer something they learned from someone else, no matter how trivial that thing may be, they're using someone else's idea for profit.

For me, I expect my ideas to get stolen. That's why you constantly develop new products rather than create a product and sit back and expect to live off that one for 10 or 15 years.

Evolve.

Paul, it could help other people thinking of "spilling out internet
marketer's secrets".

Besides, why do people come here in an IM forum? To ask questions!

Ta-da!

What the OP is describing would be ripping someone off.

As far as "ideas", and creative and unique ways of implementing them, that is another story.

I would be hard pressed to believe there are very many IM business ideas that haven't been thought of and used already.

But instead of trying to skim the profits of someone else work, actually read and use the material first.

Then develop your own creative system.

"secrets" are just methods very many people haven't heard of yet.

Don,

You always have something to say dontcha.

OK - go ahead and do it. I'll look the other way and claim ignorance. :confused:

LOL

AL

There's a difference between writing a product that has some ideas you use that other people have also written about, and just doing a rewording of someone else's product.

I agree totally!

Hi,

If you think that something's good enough to invest a lot of your own time in "kneading" it to fit your style then a couple of thoughts spring to mind.

You're obviously impressed with what you've bought.
The other guy's obviously further than you otherwise you'd have a similar product out there already.
Why waste your time remodelling, just be an affiliate and sell the product you apparently like and make money for you and the "Guru".

Mike

That was Governor Blagojevich, he's got lots of awesome ideas like that, very motivational.

There isn't anything at all wrong with this if you put your own twist on it... this is about business - it's not worth your time to pay attention to how someone feels about you "possibly" sharing their online secrets because of some personal attachment that they have to their work.

I think that it's all fair game to rework and add to some other persons work.

It's just business:

Go to Home Depot - tell me how many different brands of hammers that they sale that are identical

Go to Wallgreens - they sell Wal-tussin as an alternative to Robitussin

Check out Best Buy or Circuit City - Sony and Toshiba both sale a 42 inch flat screen T.V. that almost do the exact same thing

You all know that this list can go on forever...

All of these things have very subtle differences but, they do the same thing.

Do the originators of these ideas complain? Maybe, but they still continue to promote their products and some of them make billions.

Marketing is nothing more than promoting a new or different perspective... from time to time, a new innovation hits the scene... But the gist never changes

Actually, no it's not.

The hammer has been a comodity for awhile now. Anyone can make one with zero consequence.

The Walgreens is flawed because Walgreens actually private label's Robitussins products, which means the use a license from Robitussin to sell their brand.

Sony and Toshiba get their parts and tech from the same source as well, and license it for their use.

Google and Yahoo use different search algorighims.

All of these are a lot different than just basically rewriting someone's work, and passing it off as your own.

Steve, you always make crack me up because you ALWAYS have an answer for EVERYTHING

I wish you had an answer to how I meet the girl in your picture

I'm sure that Executive Book Summaries do this UNDER LICENSE like many such services NOT in the manner advocated in certain places in this thread.

Take it easy.

Thomas

So, basically...anything in the internet marketing world. LOL

AL

You left out the rest of that sentence, which is:

"...as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration;"

In a nutshell, that means that when you commit an idea, procedure, method, system process, concept, principle, or discovery to concrete form (for instance, create a training manual/video/product/proposal), that form has copyright. You left out the most important part of the sentence.

That is not true. I am living proof. I have several things that have never been done, thought of, or even heard of before I figured it out on my own.

AL

Here is the very first line from the orginal post that started this thread:

We are talking about a fixed copyrighted work not an idea.

The OP proposed buying studying and dissecting the copyrighted work and publishing a new derivative work based on his interpretation of the content found in the original published and copyrighted course.

Ok, I'll leave you to litigate the matter, counselor. Your law professors were apparently better educated than mine, because mine taught me that there is no copyright protection on a "secret".

Of course it CAN be illegal. That's why you consult a lawyer. The responses on this topic are all over the place.

No one here is a lawyer

Exactly. Everyone explains it in there own words. How many books at the book store are just re-works of each other! That's how it works.

And these authors always give each other a "pat on the back" to add more testimonials. Same way the online "gurus" do it.

What about NLP. Everyone who claims to be teaching NLP (they can be sued, right)? Richard Bandler and John grinder created NLP, now we have hundreds of people copying them? Wouldn't that be considered illegal?

People are literally "copy and pasting" NLP and the techniques that Bandler and Grinder gathered from other psychotherapists. <--- Bandler and Grinder copied others too!

Heres what the International Association for Neuro-Linguistic Programming Law Firm had to say:

"Based upon the advise we have received, we will continue to take the position that no one individual or group can claim a monopoly in the use of the term "Neurolinguistic Programming" and its acronym, "NLP" "

Tony Robbins learned NLP, then formed NAC (or whatever his version is called). Isn't this the same as what we are describing in the OP?

These are real servere cases , I would assume, since they are literally copy and pasting NLP and the techniques used.

Would that make everyone teaching NLP unethical and ripping off John Grinder and Richard Bandler? Or maybe there ripping off Erickson, Satir, Bateson, ,Perls?

Isn't that what people are describing on this forum as being illegal and unethical?

Bandler and Grinder created and "started" NLP. They formed it.

Now others are copying off what they "started"

How is this different?


Lets take the Artibrage Conspiracy for example. Didnt this guy learn from another another PPC/PPV marketer? So some of his stuff would be considered not original and copied? Obviously you have you're own creativity in there, but to say none of the work is really a re-work of same concept (expect with a higher price tag and the GURU BRAND behind it) its crazy.