Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
We're not talking about something that is physically unique which you have created. What we're really talking about here is ownership of an idea. No such right exists. You can not own an idea or prevent others from using it, except for what copyright grants you.
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A book is not an idea, but a concrete
expression of that idea. "A boy discovers that he is a wizard and goes to a wizard school" is an idea which cannot be protected; "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is a specific implementation of that idea which
can be protected. It doesn't prevent anyone else from writing books about boy wizards, but it does prevent anyone from copying that specific, concrete implementation of the idea without the author's permission.