History books are full of copy-cats. They provided humankind with propaganda, deception, betrail, espionage, fraud, and sometimes treason.
In our time, such living replicas of original personalities have limited their function to a narrow field of operations. Due to the insane technological advances, imitators prefer to profit mainly within three areas: mass media, intellect (whatever that means), and politics.
The media copy-cats form an industry altogether. Those are carefully groomed professionals, prepared by other experts to the last detail, portraying a persona other than their own and sometimes a persona already existing. Their expressed ideas are not really their own, and they resemble those of another prominent (or not so prominent) individual. Their job (or, shall I say, ‘assignment’) is to adopt the characteristics of another individual, modify the rough edges, and present a similar case, only far more improved. The only real thing about them is their name.
If they do the job well, the directly imitated persona becomes an indirectly attacked persona, left on the side of the road, abandoned by clients, colleagues, associates, and audience as it becomes redundant in a highly competitive world that monetizes attention. And all this just because someone adopted your strengths and improved your weaknesses while retaining your ‘signature’ (communication mode).
Terrible thing, you might think, when operating in the media world…
Well, if we start talking about intellectual property, it is even worse. Anybody can copy you these days, quicker and easier than ever before, and plagiarize and profit from your hard work. All the research, thinking, analyzing, citing, writing, and typing you did can become the starting point for someone else’s advancement in a role or position.
In politics, the consequences of such practices can be massive. After intensive schooling by large committees of experts, failing candidates come back stronger, eliminating opponents, winning ground in places they used to be behind by activating replica characteristics of their opponents personality, then destroying it. By the way, who pays for all this?
You must be wondering by now how you could avoid such a misfortune. The answer is by offering your most valued products, services, or ideas to a limited audience of a select few. There are many sophisticated ways to do this. Addressing only those who matter the most (to you) means that your work has minimal chances of being exploited. Precisely because it is communicated only to those who can understand and value it, it can be taken further for their own (and the collective) benefit without being exploited for personal gain by opportunists.
It applies equally to the media world and the never-ending battle between intellectuals and their dogmas of a highly subjective nature.
But if you want my humble opinion, you should not worry about the whole thing. In fact, you should pray to be imitated, copied, and monitored by competitors. It means you are doing something right. If your offer has value, you can always prove you invented or discovered something first just by presenting it out there as soon as. The dates and times are registered automatically on almost every modern platform and in traditional correspondence.
If you are a victim of such a scheme, resorting to legal advice is a good idea. If in the media world, you will need an expert legal team able to untangle the knots. Regarding intellectual property, things get even straighter pretty soon.
In politics, you have an even better option: once you discover who copied you and have established the reason, do not hesitate to contact them. Few encounters can be more productive.