I found out recently that an off-road tour that has been near the center of my life for nearly two decades was actually the invention of someone else. Not only that but this individual was willing to guide anyone interested on the route I created for several hundred dollars — an item that I’m sure is of interest to federal land management agencies.

This is not my first time something like this has happened to me.

Years ago, I wrote a series of books and found that one of them was copied and then sold under a different title by someone else. During my career in higher education, I gave up keeping track of the number of times a student submitted to me a paper that contained material that I recognized right away because I wrote it before they did.

Note to prospective student plagiarists — it’s best to at least check who’s the author on the work you are plagiarizing and make sure that it’s not your instructor. That mistake tends to initiate a conversation that does not generally end well for you.

Supply side bottom feeders would not exist were there not a market for their services. Indeed, the reviews on the guy’s website who appropriated my off-road tour are good — and they come from people who know full well what he’s up to. It is the same with websites that are designed specifically to help students cheat. They tend to get rave reviews.

Shame is evidently beyond the comprehension of many.

I collect guitars. Truly collectible guitars can be worth serious coin — but they compete with a galaxy of knockoffs. Anyone with half an ear and any tactile sense in their hands can easily tell the difference between a desirable guitar and a knockoff — generally from China. But that fact in no way decreases the popularity of the knockoffs.

I’m not talking about licensed guitars made in China. These are often quite good. China is a diverse manufacturing behemoth, and it’s not difficult to find skilled labor and high manufacturing standards — if that’s what you are looking for. Ibanez and Gibson both produce licensed guitars in China. I own a few of them and their build quality, feel and tonal characteristics are great.

What I object to are unlicensed rip-offs of expensive American instruments. You can purchase an ersatz 1959 Les Paul Standard complete with a Gibson serial number off the Interwebs for a few hundred bucks while a real ‘59 will set you back somewhere north of $100k.

The Chinese knock off is readily distinguishable up close to anyone who knows anything about guitars. Besides, only a knucklehead would carry an instrument worth more than a nice house to a club gig. I have no idea who you think you are fooling.

Intellectual property theft is a huge problem for the American manufacturing sector. An unscrupulous individual gets their hands on a product that’s had a decade of research and development put into it, reverse engineers it, then finds an overseas manufacturer to crank it out as cheaply as possible.

This phenomenon is ubiquitous. Ask a musician what they think about the royalties they receive from their endeavors then ask everyone else if it’s OK to download music without paying for it.

I’ve seen estimates that more than a quarter of some categories of items sold on Amazon come from unverifiable origins.

Thievery and subsidizing thievery are both wrong. The fact that you are probably not going to jail if you get caught with an unlicensed instrument, a rip-off Amazon clone or drive full of music that you didn’t pay for doesn’t make having any of it right. Innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, designers, craftsmen and creators all deserve to be compensated and acknowledged for their work.

Cheap is cheap, you can pay now or you can pay later. And nothing is free. The fact that you didn’t pay for something doesn’t make it free; it just means that you shifted the cost somewhere else.

We are, sadly, an endlessly entitled society. When I hear people talk about free education, free health care or free anything it makes me want to eat an unlicensed Les Paul and poop pine splinters.

But sometimes karma straightens out its own wrinkles. Several years ago, a dirt bike rider came through Pocatello with a set of gear bags that were knockoffs of those made by a company started by a couple of my friends. The originals are impeccably designed and made right here in the USA. The knockoffs were terrible and after less than 150 miles had started to come apart.

While the rider was in my shop, I talked with him about the prospects for his bags, which by then were not good. I got, in response, a lecture about how he was actually aiding the U.S. economy by having more disposable income to spread around because he’d paid about half of what the real bags cost.

I offered this fellow an extra set of the real items that I had laying around for about half of what he paid for the his failing ripoffs. He passed. “A little duct tape and these will be good as new.”

The next day, I was a few hours behind this guy in oppressive heat. I could not drink water fast enough to stay hydrated. Just when I thought that I might pass out, I came over a sand dune and saw what I was sure at first was a mirage — a 20 ounce bottle of ice cold water laying there. Another few hundred yards and there was another. Six bottles later and I was all set for the rest of the day.

That afternoon I came up on Mr. Erstaz Bags huddled in the sparse shade of some sagebrush. On the back of his motorcycle were tattered remnants of the Chinese specials empty of their contents.

Sometimes you’ve literally got to burn to learn.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, consultant and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time happily raising children, llama farming, and riding mountain bikes and motorcycles.