Roger Kreuz

But even extends further than that, you know, if you create a character like Harry Potter, that character is intellectual property.

It might be copywritten, certain books that were written by the author, but the actual idea of Harry Potter can be thought of as intellectual property.

No, the U.S.

case law is pretty clear.

The defense I didn't know or I wasn't aware is problematic.

There was a case a number of years ago where the claim was that it was possible that an artist heard an earlier song maybe 20 years before they wrote their own.

And yet a jury believed that, yeah, that's good enough for me.

I believe that that could have lodged a certain musical idea in that person's mind, and therefore, even though they didn't intend to consciously plagiarize, this idea was nonetheless expressed in work that owed something to the original.

And if you convince a judge and jury that that's a good story, that will actually get you some money in the court of law.

A very common way that's handled in the music world is that somebody who perhaps inadvertently copied something might get added as a co-writer for that song and therefore get the royalties from that work.

That's a relatively common way in which this is done.

A lot of artists don't have deep pockets, and so suing them wouldn't necessarily lead to a big windfall, although it can in some cases.

But being added as a co-writer would ensure you some sort of compensation in the future as the royalties accrue for that work.

Yeah, even having thought about this now for several years, I'm still mystified by this.

Because in some respects, it's not all that hard to even paraphrase somebody else.

So why on earth would you do something that might lead to serious issues for you down the line by copying page after page of somebody else's work?

There are people who claim that plagiarists want to get caught.

That's like kleptomania.

There's a certain kind of compulsion that people have for taking the work of others.

I'm not really convinced by that argument, but at the same time, I don't really have a better explanation.