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Yesterday I was thinking about what an idea is. It seems to me that ideas are everywhere. There is an idea contained within the words printed onto the paper, and there is an idea contained within the way the words are printed onto the paper.
Why is the idea contained within the words copyrighted, but the method of printing the words not?
Mostly this stems from a book I read recently about copying in various industries. The restaurant business for instance, rampant copying of ideas. We might think it is absurd to imagine copyrighing the expression of ingredients into a highly edible dish, but the chef did take a lot of time and effort to create. Why should another chef in another restaurant be able to copy the work and sell it??
Or are texts unique?
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