Copycats - There Should Be Rules

We all know that there are a lot of copycat
programs on the web. Some good, some not.

Now I am not going to throw stones if someone
copies an idea - heck I did it myself by accident.
When I came up with our new forum I thought
I had an original idea only to discover that I
didn't. But that's OK.

Why is it alright to copy things?

Because if we didn't, there would only be one
marketing forum, one hosting service, one
autoresponder service, one vitamin company,
one insurance company, one ...

In fact, without copying things, the whole idea
of viral marketing wouldn't work.

So, copying a good idea and going with it is good
but ...

There should be some rules!!!

And one of the rules should be -
Don't force people to give up something they
may have worked or paid for to join your new,
copied program.

What prompted me to come up with this rule?

As some of you know, I did join a list building
program this last year. Now I don't join these
things often because as I have stated before,
I don't have much luck with them. But Joe is
good friend and subscriber so I decided to give
it a shot and joined under him.

Then last week while surfing I ran across a
fantastic sales page offering The "Bulletproof
List Building System" created by two well know
internet marketers. And since it was free, I
decided to check it out.

Guess what? They had come up with a great way
to market the same list building program I joined
under Joe only they promised - "How To Rocket
Your List From Zero To TENS OF THOUSANDS
Of Red Hot Opt-In Subscribers In 30 Days Or Less!
The SECRET Is In The FREE SYSTEM!"

Wow, I thought. Now I can give Joe and I a real
boost in this program.

Wrong!!!

Here is an excerpt taken from the "readme" file
for those who want to use their program.

Begin Quote
-------

If you have already used opportunity.com to grow
a huge list and do *NOT* wish to CANCEL your
current membership, then we regret that you may
not participate in this automated list building
system. (See the Opportunity.Com membership
agreement and terms of service. We regret that we
have no control over their service terms). We are
however confident that should you decide to
sacrifice your current Opportunity.Com down-line
(if any) to participate in this campaign our system
will enable anyone to match and surpass their previous
down-line tally in record time.

Opportunity.Com does NOT permit it’s users to
open multiple accounts. If you are already an
Opportunity.Com member, please **DO NOT** use
your existing membership details. Simply CANCEL
your current membership and SIGN UP USING THE
LINK PROVIDED IN THIS EMAIL (above). If you are
caught by our automated signup-tracking log
attempting to 'cheat' the system by inserting an
existing member ID, your account will be immediately
terminated and you will lose all rightto email your ads --
even if you built up a downline of 5,000,000. We
promise to do everything we can to protect you from
downline theft and to help you build a larger list
FASTER than you could ever dream possible before.
--------------------
End Quote

I must admit that I don't have a large downline
in the Opportunity.com system so giving it up
would be no great loss. But, I won't give it up.

In fact, after reading the rules for this new program
I wonder about the ethics of those who created it.

Who are they really trying to help?

If they are trying to help me, they would allow
me join under them but not require it.

So the answer is obvious -
They are building their own large list even at the
expense of others.

Not Fair!

To Your Success,
Susan

PS - I am not including a link to the system
mentioned in this article for a good reason
but I will give you my Opportunity.com link.
http://www.opportunity.com/r/smc2002