Copyright — New Thinking

Gladwell quotes Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law Professor, who feels that copy right is not exactly ‘ property right’. A garden bench lifted from someone’s backyard is a theft, as the person steals it, and the owner does not have it any longer. However, if the nice garden furniture is kept in mind, and similar furniture is obtained from some source, it could not be called theft. What about the jacket you wear? Exactly, what do I take away from you?

In publishing verbatim lifting of material is crime, and rightly so. But if just an idea is borrowed, and improved upon greatly so as to create a valuable work of art, what is it? In such situations, borrowing may be a compliment.

Three Idiots transformed Five Point Someone into a work of art of higher order.

We should think deeply about the economics and legality behind issues if copyright.

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