Stealing academic ideas

I was reminded again today about the dangers of posting such ideas online.  Your own original (or not so original for those of us who are in the "postmodern" in-the-know) content is at risk all the time from those who want to and are willing to steal our ideas, much like those who steal music, art, images, videos, and other sources of intellectual property off the Internet.

Honestly though, most people steal either when they want to get popular or can make money off it, or need something they don't want to pay for.  Would anyone really want to steal my ideas on this page?  And (another reminder from another colleague of mine), would anyone really be able to find this blog as well as my web page? This blog as well as my dissertation page is buried upon buried underneath all sorts of webpages in Google.  If you type in any combination of keywords relating to my "supposed" topic, I am still buried underneath mountains of other web addresses.  I could barely find it.  Now it may become popular later, but for now I would highly doubt it.

And if anyone in academia would steal ideas, and claim it as his/her own, then I'd mostly refer to them, in common modern academic terms, as a "scab."  Honestly!  Education is about collaboration.  The sharing of ideas and working together.  Why would anyone in the field of education be such a "scab" and steal my content?  Now, I know anything is possible, and there probably is someone out there who might.  But those who are really educators should very much know better than that.  Plus, as long as you attribute the idea to the original owner of the idea, then you stay very much out of trouble.

Well, my ideas are specific to the area I work in, so unless someone very near to where I work and study steals my ideas, then, in my humble opinion, I don't really have much to worry about.  Even if they are in the same University as I am in, I still don't have much to worry about.  Plus, if the person who does steal my ideas is within the place I work and study at, I very much know where he/she is on this island and can track them down and confront them very easily (unless they want to run off to Mexico or some other foreign country, I doubt it).  And trust me, they will not be happy if they have to confront me.  I am fair, but firm in regards to things like this. (Well, for the most part) :-)

So, that's it.