Re: thought for the week

On 7/21/99, Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> A world of copyright is like a world in which,
> when I buy a tomato, I may eat the tomato, but
> I may not plant its seeds and grow my own tomatoes
> for market.

And you may not draw a picture of your tomato. And you may not create something that looks an awful lot like your tomato.
And you might not be able to plant oranges, if the oranges might displace the market for the tomato. And you may not make tomato-like things for humorous purposes, unless you are doing so to make a point about tomatoes themselves.
And you may not publish a quiz book about tomatoes if it incorporates the essence of the tomato. And you may not take a piece of the tomato and put it in some larger work involving grapes and cucumbers. And, depending on the jurisdiction, you may not be able to squash your tomato flat and make decorative tiles out of it.

-A

Ari Kahan
<akahan[_at_]netcom.com>