Trying to decide if I should call someone out: a creative I worked with a few years ago updated her portfolio, and copied my layout and a lot of my language (copied and pasted a bunch of my write ups).
Should I let it go, reach out, or call her out publicly?

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My art partners tend to copy and paste my write ups. I don’t think much of it. If they did not actually work on the work, then you should 100% reach out to them.

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The writer probably sees your version as the “official” version and doesn’t want to stray from that for fear of getting the wrong details out there (or some version of this.) Any time I feel offended about this sort of thing I try to assume they have good intentions 🤷🏻‍♂️

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Call her punk ass out. I just called out the CCO of PWC on LinkedIn (he follows me). #FuckEm

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Is your layout a common layout?

Change yours and then call it out, you have more ideas, the other person might not

Let it go. Doesn’t affect you getting hired, publicly calling someone out and even privately does. Hopefully your credited on the page for your role and it’s even promoting you.

A creative with no originality? Shocking.

It was wrong of this person to do this. Time is money, and this person used yours without compensation. Advertising is a competitive and ageist industry. I wouldn’t be pleased about someone copping my shit without asking so recruiters can turn around and hire them for the same kinds of gigs I’m going for, only with the glow of youth on their side and at a cheaper rate, either. I agree that there’s probably not a lot you can do other than maybe reaching out for a casual conversation in which you find out why they did it and tell them that it left a bad taste in your mouth while giving them a chance to explain. Sometimes people are just ignorant or have different ideas of what constitutes stealing in this regard.

I always wait for my teammates to write up stuff so I can copy it. We are a team. We all worked in the project. If they want to come up with a nice write up... thanks

I’m not sure if it matters — you should feel a little flattered if anything. Look, if somebody is a plagiarist at heart, they will eventually get caught out and stealing of any kind is abhorrent within the creative community and the offender will wear it like a scarlet letter for their career— ‘nudge, nudge... they’re the guy/gal who stole/copied from...etc. etc.. 25yrs later I still refer to somebody who literally stole a guy’s physical portfolio and presented all of it at a job interview as her own work and, of course, it inevitably that got back to the original owner. The creative community is an incredibly small ‘bowl’ we live in, and even more so now with a globally connected internet; a new logo design, even inadvertently looking similar to another will be highlighted within hours and go viral as quickly! I would not sweat somebody taking your layout — YOU know who did it and they are fundamentally stealing and they know it too — they won’t last in this career

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