First Gold

Abstract

What is the difference between getting inspiration from, and plagiarizing, someone else? Can industry standard behavior, none-the-less, be unethical behavior? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Evan is a graphic designer. Evan finds out he won a gold medal award at the yearly ad industry awards for one of his designs. The problem is, he lifted the exact design from an Australian ad that was 20+ years old. To be fair, the copied ad was one of three options he gave the client, and the other two were original works. Afterwards, the client so loved the copied design he insisted that Evan make no future changes. Furthermore, Evan withdrew his ad from contest consideration, but the client resubmitted it on his behalf without his knowledge. His firm acknowledges that, “everybody does it” from time-to-time and his actions were only “technically…unethical behavior.” Regardless, when the client finds out, the client insists that Evan be terminated even though he loves the ad and (because it was copied) saved money on the hourly rate. Given the choice between an employee and a profitable client, the firm terminates Evan.