When does anecdotal advice become public domain?
I was looking for an author of a quotation and a funny thing happened. When I “googled” the title of an article that I set aside last year, 98 percent of the same article, word for word, came up as written by three different authors.
My first thought was, “… now the information is public domain property, copy it and use it as my own.”
A phone call to one of the authors clarified the situation. The words came from a business franchise that packages a boilerplate of soul searching dialog. Reminds me of Dr. Phil’s anecdotal scripting that brings the best (or worst) out of his show mates.
When does anecdotal advice become public domain?