Quote:
Originally Posted by Timboli
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.
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Yes, of course. Everybody will get it a little bit different. Unless you are copying whole sentences or paragraphs, it will get hard to decide if you used the story. If you take LOTR, for example, and retell it in your own words (not directly copied), you will still see that it is simply retelling (or rewriting) the whole story and should be easy to detect. Still would depend on the judge whether you infringed on copyright or not. And since it is unclear where the line should be definitely drawn, that would be a strong argument for copyrights that expire after a while, as to not tie up the court system forever on ever increasing amount of forever copyright.