It has come to my attention recently that a specific stanza from my book has been circulating online in a distorted form. As an author, seeing your work resonate with others is a gift, but seeing it stripped of its origin and altered to bypass ownership is deeply disheartening.
The Original vs. The Imitation
In my book, The Weight of Tender Things (ISBN 978-627-94725-0-2), I wrote a specific line that many of you have shared and connected with ( It went viral on social media the moment I posted it):
”People, people, people, an ocean of people, but I can’t find even a drop of humanity.”
Sadia Hakim / Goodreads
Recently, I discovered a version being shared on Instagram and other platforms that looks like this:
”Humans, Humans, Humans, entire oceans of humans, yet not a single drop of humanity.”
At first glance, some might think this is just a coincidence or a “different version.” However, as the creator of the original text, I need to be clear: swapping a single word for a synonym does not make a poem new. It makes it a copy.
The Reality of Colorable Variation
In the world of intellectual property, what has happened here is known as a colorable variation. This occurs when someone makes minor, superficial changes to a work specifically to hide the fact that they have stolen the core structure.
By keeping my exact triple repetition at the start and the specific “ocean versus drop” metaphor, the infringer has stolen the “heart” of my poem. Changing “people” to “humans” is a cosmetic change that does not erase my ownership of the creative expression.
Why This Isn’t a “New” Work
For a derivative work to be legal and ethical, it must be transformative. It must add significant new ideas, a new message, or a new creative perspective. This version adds nothing. It contributes zero new creative value to the literary world. Instead, it is a mechanical substitution intended to misappropriate my work while attempting to bypass copyright detection systems.
Copyright law protects the Total Concept and Feel of a literary work. The cadence, the rhythm, and the metaphorical arrangement of this stanza belong to me as the author.
A Final Note on Integrity
I am sharing this today to set the record straight and to protect the integrity of my writing. To those who support my work and share it with credit, I am incredibly grateful. To those who feel that paraphrasing is a loophole for theft, I hope this serves as a reminder that a poem is an author’s intellectual property.
I have taken the necessary steps to report this non-literal copyright infringement to the relevant platforms. My words are my own, and I will continue to defend the creative labor that went into every page of my book.