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Originally Posted by pwalker8
I also find the second point the more interesting point and the point that has the greatest effect on society. It's also the point where aggressive copyright holders can make the most mischief. Who would risk writing about a boy wizard in wizard school if you know that J.K. Rowlings, inc is going to tie you up in court for the next decade, win or lose? In general, it's not happening at the moment, except in a few cases, such as Harland Ellison, but it will come. If I recall correctly, J.K. Rowlings had several people sue her claiming that they came up with the idea of a wizard school first. Now, there is a whole sub-genre based on wizard schools. As we have seen in the US with patent trolls, all it takes is a few sympathetic judges, or at least judges unwilling to simply throw the case out of court quickly and a law firm that goes out and buys the copyrights to a diverse group of books can have a pretty nice little business model.
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We need to tighten down on what's allowed to be copyrighted. The concept of a wizard school should not be allowed to be copyrighted. It's too broad of a term. The school needs to be be narrowed down to a certain set of characters or events or places or time frame, etc.