[aflyax]

"Stealing an idea" is a poorly defined concept. What is one supposed to be stealing exactly? I.e., what is being owned? You can't own a piece of someone's brain (or otherwise privately owned information carrier... which, I repeat, is already OWNED by someone else -- not you), and platonic objects don't exist (or, at least, there is no evidence that they do, and the phenomenon of information can be explained without them, so... Occam's Razor).

So, it's like saying "square triangle" or "later than 3 but earlier than 1". It's an ill-defined concept and a legal fiction, and applying it in practice costs millions of dollars, people's lives, creativity, and violates people's rights to their ACTUAL, not fictional, property.