This, is a very werid thing. It seems very valuable and yet, so vunerable. People would want to protect their rights at intellectual property more, versus their own, physical property. The feeling of' owning' works differently for each property and is piviotal on the owner's defination of cost. The obvious answer of why intellectual property has more emotions twisted into its feeling of lost, is because of effort. There is the work done behind coming up with such property, and even if the effort was accidental or effortless, there would be the aura of satisfaction that swims around the air of the work done. And when something is copied from the work, say, a concept taken out from it, combined with a few other theories from elsewhere and perhaps the copier's own theories; the aura of satisfaction bursts its bubble and relights the lighted splint while giving a vigorous reaction. To translate, its a fuzzy feeling that takes after the pioneers of betryal, of lost, of anger, of fustration, of sadness, of outrage, of tolerance and a seemingly annoying travestified clench-of-fist. Laymanly, its a 'what the hell.... I thought of that!' Selfish? Maybe. But if humans were generous and creatures who knew how to share, the world would not need the systems like democracy anyway. Fact is, we suck at being good people. For some reason, we just are evil to the extent of destruction.

Intellectual property has been copied in so many ways, so many styles and so many situations. There is the continual growth of the abuse systems and even that have been copied. Many a times, when someone copies something, it might be very unobvious and both parties might not even realise that such a fact is going on. On a less abstract level, we can ponder about piracy, about copyrights, about copy-paste-accomplished School projects, the avenue that allows the 'sharing' (internet), etc. It wouldn't be bad enough for humans are creatures of copy. We need to imitate to learn, we need to follow to learn to lead. But as Lexus in 'The Way' has pointed out, 'It does more harm then good if you take away total power from the hands of someone'. And with the concept in hand but slightly deviated to fit another medium, when one closes himself into a cube to keep emulating without creating, to keep changing without making and to continually fix rather than construct, he would only be a shadow that walks behind the shadows of those who dare to create. Such a someone, has no power.

Then what about inspiration? A great idea is always inspired, isn't it? A majestic storyline always gets its jerky bits from another dog, isn't it? Now lets do the frequently copied method of defining inspiration, to get it from the dictionary (m-w.com): --
a : a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation
b : the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions
c : the act of influencing or suggesting opinions
How mild....... in a overview-nutshell, inspiration is a good thing. It is positive, and would probaly be encouraged for creativity. Not wrong. Teacher says so. Society says so. World says so. And... I think so. (So it wasn't sarcasm) But theres always the but, that can be pondered upon... its pretty elementary to understand when you think about it, so I'll spare myself the typing.

With such case in point, Blue mages would then be the most despised lot of the mages. For the benefits of those who don't play RPGs, Blue magic/abilities refer to skills that are gained by the act of 'copying', basically, in battle , you either concentrate or just act normally and when someone attacks you and after/during the battle, you would gain that skill. An example is Strago from FF6 who gains certain skills from monsters when they cast spells on him. The wreslter(A Japanese name that I forgotten...) from LiveALive, who gains skills by first getting people to carry out the technique on him, and then becomes capable of using that technique. But Blue magic, comes with the cost of suffering under the skill's power first... even though it is copying, it would be more acceptable compared to skills that require no pain from the skill. For instance, Lerole from A Blurred Line has the 'Acting' ablity that just has him to mimic the certain species type to gain their basic attack move. Still, he has to undergo a certain pain of mimicing the monster in the first place. The performance of the skill might give slight credit to the copy-fromer invovled by the title of the skill remaining the same or the guy's name in the name slot. But all such skills lack something vital-- development. There is only thought process is how to copy the skill to produce the same effect or perhaps, if I were to consider the topic, how to copy the skill and tweak it to produce another or similar effect.

The feeling of betryal that is stimulated when one's intellectual property is copied, probaly comes from the same fear of the teacher when he sees his disciple becoming stronger and stronger versus him. Such fear has made the many skills of the puglist world lost, as my Primary school chinese teacher had said there were 10 great skills and as the transfer of teacher to pupil goes on, each teacher kept 1 skill to himself so he would always be better than the pupil, in the end, there was only 1 skill left and the last teacher died with it.

And thats what humans are. We desire what is seemingly ours and don't want to part with it... even though, what belongs to us, might not belong truly to us, in the first place.


"Heh. How much you see is not really there. And how much you don't see is right in front of your face. " -- Dirk, The Way. When crossing the Lacodiea Stretch.

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