Every hard work that yields a successful result must often be acknowledged. It is illegal to copy one's brainstormed idea and entitle it to oneself. This is plagiarism and is against the law. Plagiarism could be in different forms such as stealing one's idea in written books, pictures designed or drawn and lots more.
When I was in high school, I had an experience where my idea was stolen from me. There was an Art Competition which came up and was open to everyone in the last year of his/her high school. I am very good at creating stencils of objects and animals such as cars, butterflies, lizards or anything that comes to my mind.
Source
In the first round of the competition, we had several participants from different high schools in the city. Joe and I were the contestants representing our school. Joe and I were able to qualify from the preliminary stage to the semi-final. Joe is very excellent at creating stencils too but he lacks the intellectual prowess of creativity. He only gets ideas of what to make from others. He is used to making stencils of common objects such as cups, spoons and footballs.
A night before the D-day for the semi-final stage of the competition, I was on my bed thinking of the stencil to make that would qualify me to the finals. I later slept off without a conclusion. Early in the morning while I was still sleeping, one of the hotel attendants came knocking on my door to serve me my breakfast. I ate my breakfast and dressed up for the challenge.
The procedure for the competition was that every contestant was expected to go to the Data room and register their idea and what they plan on presenting. No two contestants were allowed to input the same idea especially if they were from the same school. Before the announcement of the Art competition, I started a new project, trying to practicalize my idea of creating a stencil of a Batman car. I planned to make that my object for that contest round, but unluckily for me, after taking my breakfast, dressing up and moving to the Data room, I inputted my object. I was told that another contestant had already chosen that object. I knew it would be no other person than Joe. I felt bad and I had to think like Flash on what next to present. God saved me as I later got the idea of making a stencil of the first year the Art Competition was initiated(2021) and the current year I'm participating in(2023). It seemed like it made no sense but when I detailed my motive for creating the stencil, I was greatly appreciated by the organizers. It was only Joe and I who presented stencils throughout the competition, others drew, some painted, and made sculptures while others dyed clothes. Joe made a nice stencil of the Batman car but his speech describing what he made and his motive for creating such beautiful artwork was not appealing and awarding. He didn't qualify for the final round and wished he didn't choose that idea.
Source
When I started my stencil of Batman Car, Joe often visited my room in school to appreciate the work but I never knew he was jealous and would ever steal such a great idea from me. If I come to think of how I would have protected my intellectual property, I would say that I'm blank. I don't know how possible it would be for me to hide my artwork from my mates who lived with me in the same hostel in high school. I would consider that stealing a minute and a kind that's not too serious for the involvement of authorities. Intellectual property could be protected by keeping it to oneself till it is made public and anyone who wishes to use it either buys it or source it to avoid legal penalties.
The government and most organizations can help protect individuals' intellectual property by setting down rules to protect this property and rightfully mete out punishment on those who abuse the intellectual property of other individuals which they never worked or taken part in making.
This is my entry for the #aprilinleo monthly prompts writing. Thanks for reading my story and I hope you have enjoyed it. Have a great day.
