Quote:
Originally Posted by hardcastle
I'm not just talking about story. The same idea could be applied to literary themes, to beautiful writing and prose, characterization and anything else we enjoy about books.
Even literary meaning, communicated through prose, is not always something that can't be touched. The ways in which those themes can be communicated, the themes themselves, and where they're taken mentally - these are all things that can be changed, in ways that some people might gel to better and others may not.
From a legal standpoint, sure, but past that? I don't agree. I think endless modification, remixing and interpretation of our culture is the only way we can truly connect to it. Can you take apart the prose of a classic work and reassemble it into something that speaks to you? The classic never left. It's not an act of destruction, it's an act of creation. There are infinite possibilities, and it's hubris to think that any single idea - no matter how complex - belongs to us in any sense.
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Well, I am pretty sure DiapDealer only meant theirs in a legal sense.
I will point out that modification and remixing is a wonderful thing that manifests through the concept of the Public Domain... which does no give people the right to credit those modifications to the original author.
As far as I am concerned, it is libel to release a bowdlerized text without marking it as a derivative work. And derivative works are only legal re: the Public Domain.