I spend much of my time consuming content about the Creator Economy. Within that community, one of the generally considered must-reads is Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. The central premise of this book is — you guessed it — to show your work. While I like the spirit of this directive, I was concerned about the potential for others to plagiarize my work. However, after further consideration, I concluded that it would be easier for me to protect my intellectual property by sharing my work.
If I show my work and someone copies it, I'll have proof that I came up with the idea first. Conversely, if I don't show my work, someone else could come up with an idea similar enough to mine that if I were to share my work after they did, some people might think I plagiarized. It was this line of thinking that contributed to my decision to publish Sort Stack.
If you want to see an example of this phenomenon in action, check out this article about how the game 2048 copied from (or at least was heavily inspired by) the game Threes!.
If I show my work and someone copies it, I'll have proof that I came up with the idea first. Conversely, if I don't show my work, someone else could come up with an idea similar enough to mine that if I were to share my work after they did, some people might think I plagiarized. It was this line of thinking that contributed to my decision to publish Sort Stack.
If you want to see an example of this phenomenon in action, check out this article about how the game 2048 copied from (or at least was heavily inspired by) the game Threes!.