Here’s what is really tough — emulating a person, a practice, or a culture that you admire.
In some strange way, even ‘emulate’ harbors elements of copying.
Led Zepplin’s Stairway to Heaven is rated by most fans as one of the greatest rock songs ever. The haunting intro sets the tone for a cascading finish with Jimmy Page’s guitar solo and the late great Jon Bonham’s drumming.
While it is a classic, it was in the news as recently as a few months back. For decades, the group has been accused of stealing the intro to the immortal song from a lesser-known group called Taurus. Their song Spirit begins with an intro that sounds eerily similar to Stairway to Heaven. Listen for yourself and decide:
In 2015, Jimmy Page, Led Zepplin’s legendary guitarist testified in defense of his group. The song alone has earned over 500 million dollars in royalties since its release in 1971.
Nonetheless, the courts ultimately ruled in favour of Led Zepplin, saying there was no conclusive proof that the intro to the song was blatantly copied.
Plagiarism is considered a crime but all of us do it in bits and pieces. For example, if you read a certain type of author or blogger, their style is bound to influence you. When someone says your work is similar to someone else, they aren’t always saying that you’ve copied them, it can be that your style has been influenced by someone you admire.
JRR Tolkein, JK Rowling, Barack Obama, Jane Goodhall, all of them have faced plagiarism charges at certain points in their career.
Seen at its most basic, plagiarism is using someone else’s work almost verbatim or making very minuscule changes to it and passing it off as one’s own. Plagiarism upsets people mainly because it is seen as one party coasting off on someone else’s hard work and effort.
Businesses and organizations are in a hurry to rush a product into the market or claim intellectual property over something before copycats emerge. Of course, this is important unless you’re as large-hearted as Linus Torvalds to give away the creation that could have made you billions, for free.
Here’s what is really tough — emulating a person, a practice, or a culture that you admire.
In some strange way, even ‘emulate’ harbors elements of copying.
The dictionary defines emulate like this:
match or surpass (a person or achievement), typically by imitation
The interesting word here is ‘imitation’, which in some way means to copy.
To emulate means to go beyond mere copying or plagiarizing. It means to put in the same effort as someone that you admire to get to their level. Copying doesn’t entail any effort. It means stealing, taking a short-cut, cutting corners, waiting for someone else to create something before you can steal it from them.
Here’s where most organizations fall flat.
An organization that is well-funded by VCs and oozes money from all its pores, but stymied by dysfunctional management, will forever use money as a bait to lure people. They will never realize that you can’t buy talent or loyalty and will forever be wondering why the competition, which has leadership that values its employees, seems to attract better people who stay longer.
You can copy a design but you can’t do the same with their culture. That requires emulation, which is much harder than mere imitation without imagination.
You can imitate Le Bron James shooting a basket once, but you will collapse if you attempt to emulate his work ethic.
You can copy office space, colors, and design, but it’s incredibly hard to emulate someone’s integrity and decency.
Another aspect of emulation is to surpass what it is that you admire. You see it in sport all the time. Successive generations get inspired by their idols and a few eventually even surpass them.
Emulation earns respect. It says ‘I’m willing to put in the same amount, if not more, effort into becoming someone like you and hopefully, surpass you.’
Look for practices and people to emulate as the facade of copying something can’t be hidden for too long.
