[DropInIn]

If I write a book with a creature I call trolls and they are giant blue hairy with small shark like teeth, a "design" with nearly no association to extant trolls, and that is then appropriated by damn near everyone your position is that they didn't engage in theft, right?

You could see how any author would find such an assertion absurd, right?

Just because it's legal doesn't change what it is. We have plenty of types of "theft" in the _colloquial_ sense that are not theft under law.

Really....

[thefurdrake]

> Just because it's legal doesn't change what it is.

Purely opinion. It is well-acknowledged that authors build off ideas they have experienced. Tolkien was a brilliant and inspiring writer who inspired many other writers.

That's how it works. Humans take in ideas, add some twists, and share them.