Backstory:

John Meadows posted on Facebook how fitness model Jaco de Bruyn ripped off his workout program.

Jaco de Bruyn then posted admitting he ripped it off, and came to a business agreement with John.

Some time after that, Jaco backed out.

How the story unfolds, I don’t know. I can vouch that John Meadows is a class act. But what really grinds me gears is how he angles it as a “bad decision.” In the comments section, his fan boys go on about how it was a simple mistake, how he must be an outstanding person to fess up, etc etc.

What the hell? What kind of mental gymnastics are at play here?!

A mistake is when you accidentally write 79 instead of 97. A mistake is when you say “yes baby you do look fat in those jeans.” But copy pasting someone else’s work, passing it off as your own, and profiting isn’t a mistake. It’s malicious.

That’s not a bad decision – it’s a planned decision.

Not to mention, would Jaco De Bruyn have ever admitted to it if he hadn’t been caught first?

Plagiarism isn’t a mistake. It’s a deliberate deleterious act only done by lazy hacks.