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Posted by Richard Crowley on 02/07/07 23:52
"Bill" wrote ...
>I am perfectly aware of the fact that ideas are not legally protectable.
Your postings don't seem consistent with that statement.
> That is a legal issue which I am not talking about.
>
> I disagree with you that the examples I gave don't involve "stealing" in a
> useful sense of the word.
Your definition of "stealing" leaves a whole category
without a useful verb. By your definition, "stealing"
includes everything from taking my car in the middle
of the night to borrowing my lawn mower and returning
it, and even painting your house green because you
like the color on my house. This reduces the word to
nearly meaningless. This is NOT a useful thing to do
to advance the discussion.
>You seem to absolutely insist that "stealing" can only be used in the way
>that lawyers want to use it in court. Do you really think that the
>creators of all those imitation reality shows didn't "steal" the basic idea
>from "Survivor".
The creators of "Survivor" didn't invent the "reality"
or even the "imposed situation" genres. What short
memory spans we have.
> Did I say anywhere that that means they should be arrested and charged
> with theft? Did you miss the part where I said that appropriating existing
> concepts and ideas is not a bad thing and is, in fact, an essential part
> of our culture, and that the cross-pollination can be a healthy thing?
Nobody is arguing with that. But when you equate use
of public domain material (like ideas) with unauthorized
appropriation of intellectual property, you seem to have
a major problem distinguishing which is which.
> Geez, Paul, I find your posts are generally very useful and informative,
> but not everyone requires a definitive legal opinion on a particular word
> usage.
OTOH, not everyone agrees with your mushy "definition"
of "stealing", either. This is the kind of fuzzy thinking that
causes the confusion that Paul is attemptying to clarify.
> And Stephen Spielberg absolutely did steal entire sequences from "The
> Bridge". (Is a "sequence" an idea or expression?) There. Said it again.
> Does not mean I think he should be sued for it. In fact, obviously, quite
> the contrary.
If you don't use the same definition for "steal" as the generally
accpeted language, you will find youself at odds with most of us.
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