I was talking with my mother yesterday about the steampunk story I’ve got rolling around in my head, and she asked me a question after saying how much she liked it:

“what about copyright?”

We’re all writing stories, here on teh intarwebs.  Some of our stories are resistant to plagarism, such as stories about dealing with surgery from a sports injury.  Other stories might get taken and used elsewhere.  In some ways, that is no big deal.  If someone steals the images of me and my nerf guns, no problem.  But if someone took my ideas about my steampunk characters and used them elsewhere, I would not be happy.

I understand that it is of great value to own my own space.  The images on my blog are images I control, unlike images on facebook.  But if I am owning my own space, shouldn’t I be owning my own ideas?  To what extent are the things we talk about our own, and if someone steals them and profits off of it, what recourse do we have?