Pisya Kamushkin

Anyone can do whatever they want with their own property, but they cannot do whatever they want with someone else’s. I heard a little song from you, “putinhuylolalalalalalalala,” the tune got stuck in my head, and now I sing it too. If you start harassing me to make me stop singing it, or demand that I pay you royalties for singing, I will laugh at you, you senile fool, and walk away, humming the tune. Humming with my own mouth, that is, managing my own property, not yours.

But at the same time, one can imagine many scenarios in which I would still pay you money. You could sell me a ticket to a concert where you sing the song. You could sell me a T-shirt with a dickhead on it. You could suggest that we chip in to write a new song, for example, “hillarytoprisonlolalalalalalalala,” and I might like that idea…

As long as you invent ways for me to voluntarily part with my money to somehow partake in your intellectual property, you are a respected intellectual property owner. As soon as you start looking for ways to forcibly take money from me under the pretext that you thought of something and spent resources on it, you turn from a respected owner into a dangerous asshole.