Have you ever been asked to Plagiarize?
I have been working as a full-time freelance writer for quite some time, but yesterday I experienced a first. A client that I have been working with for a couple of months sent me an email asking me to copy work from another site. At first, I thought that I may have misunderstood the email. In order to clear things up I responded to the client asking for some clarification. And much to my surprise, they wrote back asking me to plagiarize from several sources on the net.
As you can imagine, it took me a couple of minutes to gather my thoughts. This client had been good to me for over a month, and seemed to enjoy my work. So when he asked me to plagiarize, it took me by surprise.
Obviously, I wrote back to the client explaining the situation. I told him that I am strongly opposed to plagiarism, and that it could get both of us in trouble with the original content producer.
At this point, I have yet to hear back from the client. Even if he decides that he wants to continue without copying the work of others, I am going to turn down the offer. Sure, he is offering good rates, but it is not in my best interest to work with somebody who is dishonest.
What would you do if presented with this situation? Hopefully I am not the only one who would ditch this client. Even though the pay was good, it is important to draw the line somewhere. Not being able to trust this client will make a long term relationship next to impossible.
What do you think?
