[lmkg]

IANAL either, but I think you're misunderstanding. Ignorance of the law is not generally an excuse for breaking the law. But if you're not copying the original copyrighted source, you're not breaking the law in the first place. Copyright only protects against copying, and unlike patents, does not protect against independently creating the same or similar work (operative word "independently").

Relevant quotes from wikipedia:

> "... two authors may own copyright on two substantially identical works, if it is determined that the duplication was coincidental, and neither was copied from the other."

> "Infringement requires... that the defendant copied the protected work... if two individuals both create a story that by pure coincidence is nearly identical, but each without knowledge of the other, there is no infringement since there is no copying."

So in the example the poster above gave, you can't just own the copyrights. You also have to get your work distributed widely enough to claim that the author was aware of your work, from which you can build a troll-ish infringement claim.