| Just brainstorming a low-tech analogy to help sketch-out the problem space, let's imagine if a bronze-age scenario of: 1. Alice underwent great expense to transport a rare new fruit bush from another country, with a little selective-breeding to find a variety that would thrive in local soil. 2. Alice sells these fruits. Perhaps she makes buyers agree never to plant the seeds as a condition of purchase, but that doesn't matter since... 3. Carol finds one of the seeds, simply fallen on the street. (Therefore contracts aren't part of this scenario.) 4. Carol plants her own bush and starts selling the fruits too. 5. Alice complains that Carol has wronged her and that she has some kind of right to the sale of the fruit. It's true that in this low-tech example Alice didn't construct the plant--certainly not same way as with a program or screenplay--but she did invest some similar kind of time/effort/resources in making it available. So the question is whether that kind of "work" creates some kind of right, one which exists outside any kind of contractual agreement. If so, what are its differences or limitations from her other rights? |