> #  If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples
> then#  you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an
> idea and#  I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us
> will have#  two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw

Copyright was invented in order to promote people sharing ideas. Thomas Jefferson, the key framer of the Constitution, compared ideas to a candle flame. He said what we really want is a scheme that would encourage people to share their ideas because, like sharing a candle, if I have an idea and share that idea with you, you can light your candle from that idea and you can take it somewhere else. I still have the idea and you now have the idea, and we can both make use of it. 

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Of course Jefferson was a wacky tobacky communist.
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