deep thoughts interesting email conversations about "copying" in design, led to rapid fire thoughts about copying in general. Human "progress" both biologically and culturally has relied on copying. Sometimes not very accurate copying, but copying nonetheless. If one thinks about one's life, career, relationships, conciously or not, one is always copying what has been done before you. Not that there is no room for originality -- but originality is more often than not, either an imperfect copy or a combination (juxtaposition of copies) of something that has come before.

The more I think about it the more I see it to. Take the example of a meeting I am going to go to tonight. We are a political action committee. Our meetings run according to a set of by-laws. Those by-laws, while somewhat fit to our own particular circumstance are essentially the same as a thousand other committees across the country -- all running our meetings according to some protocols invented by some unknown organization genius way back who knows when.

Any manufacturing process is obvious, recipes (i.e. just about any food you eat, cooked or not!).

This is not to denigrate copying at all -- in fact more just thinking about it as an essential part of human ( if not biological ) experience. We all should have the right to copy. Down with copyright -- since they, in the end, have just really copied someone else anyway.