I've got some property in Florida you'd be interested in...
By way of Paperback Writer, a link to eMediaWire and a story about a guy who has applied to patent... a storyline.
A plot. He wants to patent his plot, so that nobody could ever use it again.
His name is Andrew F. Knight, and he's got a website. He also has a very odd way of looking at writing fiction.
...the value of a singer's performance or a dancer's performance or a writer's performance... in in the performance, while the value of an inventor's invention is in the invention, not a single instance, embodiment, expression, or performance of the invention. The value of a performance is in the performance, while the value of an inventor's invention is in the invention, not a single instance, embodiment, expression, or performance of the invention. The value of a performance is protected by copyright; the value of an invention is not. An artistic innovator is given but two choices absent patent protection: to sacrificially innovate for the unearened benefite of thieves, or to not innovate. Both options are morally and practically repulsive...(emphasis added)
There are so many things wrong with this that my husband says it's ridiculous to even consider it seriously, but then he's a mathematician and I deal in stories and emotion. So some things jump out at me.
First, the sentence above that I've highlighted: sacrifically innovate for the unearned benefit of thieves.
I sit here writing my novel, coming up with a plot as I go along. I'm both performer and inventor, in his way of looking at things, and I'm also stupid, sacrificing my creative drive for... oh yeah. I'm not doing this for nothing. I get paid. People pay me indirectly when they buy a book to read the story.
So that 'thievery' bit is, seems to me, a bit of overstatement. (And what's with the 'unearned benefits'? Because really, do thieves ever earn their benefits? Isn't that what thievery is about, not having to earn, but still getting the benefits?)
Unless Knight is talking about the situation where I'm sitting on a bus and I overhear somebody proclaiming outloud a wonderful storyline that has never, ever before been imagined in the world (which really, isn't likely because every plot out there can be reduced to one of a dozen or so basic plots, we all know this). But I run home and write a novel based on that storyline. Then I get the profit, and the originator of the storyline gets nothing.
And how often does this happen? Are there legions of plot inventors out there languishing for lack of payment?
Actually, it happens quite a lot. Any published writer will tell you about the dozens of time somebody comes up to them at a party and says, hey, bub, I've got this great idea for a novel. See, there's this farmer's daughter...
And the writer says, wow, yeah, let me know how that works out for you.
My point being that it's artificial and stupid to try to separate the two parts of the process, the story structure from the creation of the story.
For a lawyer and an inventor of storylines this guy isn't the greatest writer. And maybe that's the problem. He gets ideas, he can't do anything with them, how to get around that? He could sit down, butt to chair, with a pen and paper and get to work, see if he's got what it takes, or he could go to the patent office and try to sucker them into this skewed view of the world.
My understanding of patents is this: it's a measure to encourage invention. A temporary protection for the inventor so that in the long run, everybody profits. In this case, we've all been profiting from stories told for as long as we've had language to tell them. So really, no grounds for patent. None.
And beyond all that, I am reminded of Tom Sawyer convincing all his friends what a great honor it would be to paint that fence, and how little it will cost them to participate in that great opportunity.