What's your view?

[Reece]

I was hired by Company B whose content was purchased from a travel content provider to rewrite said content in my own words so they can copyright it under their name.

What’s your view on that?

[Durant Imboden]

Sounds like a sleazy company that doesn't care much about the quality of its product, but what it's suggesting isn't illegal. I once attended a copyright seminar where an IP attorney said, "Don't attribute--rewrite." Why? Because ideas or facts can't be copyrighted; only the expression of those ideas or facts (in this case, the wording) is protected by copyright.

[Reece]

Thanks for your response, although that makes me feel better about the legal part of it - rewriting someone else's work still makes the writer in me cringe!

[Durant Imboden]

It might be best to think in terms of writing a new piece, incorporating information acquired elsewhere, as opposed to simply "rewriting" existing text.

BTW, this situation is a bit different from simply grabbing and rewriting somebody else's copyrighted work, since your client did license the rights to the original content. As long as the provider is being paid, the provider shouldn't care if the content is being used as is or rewritten.

[Keith Kellett]

There's a whiff of plagiarism about it to me, too.

It's possible that the original piece may contain an inaccuracy that you then perpetuate. If you're going to rewrite the piece, then I suggest you verify the facts given from other, independent sources.

As someone once said 'If you copy from one source, it's plagiarism; if you copy from many, it's reasearch'