Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
Here is the fundamental flaw why intellectual property is not property that can be owned. You can have it, and once you have it you own it, because it is stored as an idea inside your brain. So far so good, it is yours in every way imaginable. Now if you share that idea with someone else, then they have it. It is inside their head, they own their own personal instance. That instance they own, you don't own it, because you don't have it inside your head. How do we share a thought or an idea? We write down instructions on how to infuse that idea into someone's brain. The instructions are written down in a book. If you follow the instructions by reading them, you will infuse your brain with your own idea inside your head, similar to the original. What copyright gives you is a monopoly on exploiting those specific instructions.
So what exactly do you own? The IP itself you don't own, everybody that read the book now has it, owns it. The instructions itself printed in a book you don't own, because you sold those instructions. The only thing that you got left is being marked as the creator of those instructions to have first published them. And laws give you the exclusive rights to exploit them.
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Can't argue with much of that, but to say much of it hangs on uniqueness.
It is possible for two or more to have essentially the same thoughts (instructions), for whatever reason, and determination is then made on time ... who got them first or who declared them first. And very little in our heads is unique, except perhaps the way we put things together. We are essentially the end result of a bunch of influences.
So sometimes things can get tricky, things can be hard to definitively prove, and some judge in a court may need to make a ruling on whether something is different or unique enough ... and their expertise to do so may be limited.