Can I outsource writing to India at $.25 per page and pass it off as my own?

[UtopiaGreen01]

If their job contract says I can, would that be ethical?

[Skar]

Yes.

[MsFish]

Well, not in an academic setting, where turning something in for a class implies that it's your own work.  So it depends.

[Skar]

Oh no, MsFish.  If you paid for it, it's yours.  Is there some question about who owns the plastic shark I just bought? Does it somehow still belong to the rickets victim who assembled it in far off Taiwan?  In what way would a paper that I paid a legless Indian street urchin to write not be "my own?"

[Miyabi]

There is a difference in saying it's 'yours' and saying it's 'your work'.  Saying it is your work would be implying that you did the work to achieve the result, which in turn would not be the truth and would be unethical.  If you were saying it is 'mine', then it would be ethical, but to say it is 'my work' would be unethical.  There is a fine line there.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

It's a work, and it's yours. I don't see the issue there.

[Eudaimoniac]

So i could by... say Mistborn, say it it a work, and it is mine and thus it would be my work ?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

A flaw in the plan!!

[Miyabi]

Really it comes down to whether or not you are implying you did the work.

[neiana]

Really it comes down to whether or not you are implying you did the work.

What if I did the work that earned the wages to pay someone else to do the work?  Isn't it my work, then, because I did work necessary for its creation?

[Miyabi]

I don't mean did the work as in cause it's creation I'm saying did the work as in did the writing itself.

But in any case Ethics are objective.

[neiana]

I don't mean did the work as in cause it's creation I'm saying did the work as in did the writing itself.

But in any case Ethics are objective.

I assume you mean subjective?

[Miyabi]

No, I mean objective.  We can make ethics anything we wish.  We can change them to suit our needs.  While they are subjective, they are also objective.

[Necroben]

This is why people hire Lawyers.  There are so many ins and outs to the question of intellectual ownership that most of us get would get lost in all the paper work.

[Eudaimoniac]

The question is inherently flawed. It delivers too little information to be answered. But from a legal standpoint the eternal phrase fits nicely: "It depends."

It depends on who you are passing it off to.

It depends on what country you are passing it is as your own.

It depends on weather or not there is a contract, and if there is, (naturally) what terms are in the contract.

It depends on who it is you outsource it to.

It depends on what kind of writing it is.

So... i depends