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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
But that's really just semantics. The point of IP is to secure that no one can profit off of the use of an idea registered to me, except me, unless I say it's okay.
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It's not semantics. If, as you implied, your book was the IP then I could go to your website and buy a copy. I would then have the right to distribute it because I bought the book. We both know I can't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
That includes ideas that are considered slightly altered from mine, but clearly based on my idea. For instance, if someone writes a story about a Captain Keister flying a space freighter called the Betty with a purple-skinned man from Venus at the helm, a lizard-girl running cargo and a cook who grows orchids in a storage locker, I can sue that person for violation of my copyright, even though the material isn't exactly the same as mine. That's because IP law protects the idea, not just the paper it's printed on.
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And you would have to prove that the defendant had come in contact with your story in order to win the case. That is not easy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
And that's why IP protects electronic files: It's the idea, not the medium, that is being protected.
There's a lot of inventive word-play that goes on around here, used to justify people's positions. Some of it is legal wordplay. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether or not you took something that doesn't belong to you.
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If an illicit copy is made of a file, exactly what was stolen? No one was deprived of anything. This is why copyright infringement is not stealing.
P.S. I am not using legal wordplay to justify making illicit copies of someone else's work. I only wish to debate the flaws I see in your arguments.