This is an interesting question because of the way it’s worded.
Authors hijack each other’s ideas all the time. Just as artists hijack each other’s ideas all the time and all creative types hijack everyone else’s ideas all the time.
The thing is, they hijack the IDEAS but they don’t hijack the way the idea has been presented. If they do so, it’s called plagiarism and it’s illegal.
What they do is use the idea that someone else had and then spin that idea into something else that is uniquely theirs and that is often unrecognizable as the original idea. This makes perfect sense because that original idea has usually changed so much that by the time it’s presented to the public it actually is a new idea entirely.
Because one way creativity grows is by rubbing against other creativity and the greater the friction the greater the creativity.
Published on March 25, 2018 14:24
Is the scenario used to present the idea the same as the "way the idea has been presented"
How far away from the original thought does something have to be transformed before the concept that was presented is no longer considered to be plagiarism when it is rewritten.
"that is often unrecognizable as the original idea"...Anything can bring about insight about something you are writing about. If it is unrecognizable as the original idea isn't that saying it is no longer the original idea?
What about using phrases you read or heard somewhere that are titles for an entire line of thought that is barely covered by the rest of the presentation the phrase came from. How do those play out. If someone says "Prohibited from knowing who you are", and then goes on to talk about things, do they own that phrase?