The law is fine but juries can be an ass

(From a conversation on sff.net)

A lawyer pointed this out to me many years ago: "Fair use" allows anybody to
recycle my ideas. No problem; I'm sure most of my ideas came from old pulp
mags in the fifties. But it doesn't really work in both directions. If I read
somebody else's idea and then use a similar one, he could drag me into court.

Furthermore, if somebody writes me about an idea, and I never read his letter,
but in the future I write something similar on my own . . . he can _still_ sue
me. How can I prove I didn't "steal"it? The fact that no one can copyright
an idea in the first place doesn't protect me from a nuisance suit.

The classic example was Ernest Hemingway. A guy in California sued EH because
EH was "in the room" while he was telling a story that had the plot of _To Have
and Have Not_. The room was in California, and Hemingway lived in Key West,
but he _had_ been in LA. The upshot was that EH had to fly to California and
testify; whereupon the case was thrown out.

Bad jurisprudence? Sure. So what? The world is full of bad lawyers, and gullible
juries.

Joe