Stealing

But it was my idea?

We can’t help it. Some call it plagiarism. Some call it copyright infringement. Some call it stealing.

Everyday we read something or hear something or even say something that has never crossed our mind before. It may be significant enough to remember and that may carry over into another thought or action or sound or statement that wasn’t really ours to begin with but we just picked it up.

Isn’t that how we are educated?

We are taught facts and figures and our mind jumbles all these thoughts and calculates a new understanding of them with our personal experiences. As we regurgitate these facts we put our own spin on the meanings, as we understand it.

You will hear a note progression and remember the phrase and while writing a personal work add it into the piece. As a writer you will tend to phrase a statement with remembrance of a former read sentence.

Is this stealing another’s thought or just expanding the idea?

For all thoughts are built by exposure to other’s thoughts and ideas. Can education be copyrighted?

If you create something you want to protect the rights to that creation, but only if the lawyers allow you to do that.

A creative person has made a statement or performed or created a sound that is new and different and interesting, so why should it always be for profit. The artist still needs to survive to create another work but respect the appreciation of others to appreciate their work and copy it.

Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country, that grants the creator of an original work, exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited time, with the intention of enabling the creator to receive compensation for their intellectual effort.

Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work. The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules. The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, particularly with the Romantic Movement.

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem and is a product or a process. Patents are a form of intellectual property.

As you can see there are many laws and many more to protect an artist’s ideas and creations, but no matter what, someone will pick up a line or a tone or a beat or a word or a move and include it into their creative repertoire.

Even our most celebrated artist has picked up bits and pieces that have come before. We build upon our history and hopefully make it better.

So I understand an artist needs to have compensation for their creations, but feel somewhat complimented that your ideas have been copied. The rest of us will call them ‘covers’.