This semester has been intense, and I’m on my last of nine finals, but it’s also been fun, stretching my brain with different kinds of text study and writing. For my Talmud class, we had to write a Talmudic argument on the subject of theft, and with my background, intellectual property rights were a no-brainer:

The one who steals a character, story, or song from his fellow repays the value as as the time of the theft. If by stealing he has devalued the stolen items or damaged the reputation of the owner, he pays damages for lost income. But if the owner has died, behold it is ownerless, and he does not pay the inheritors. Mar Disney says, “You do pay the inheritors.”

At the time of the theft. We are taught in a baraita, “at the time the theft was discovered.” Whose is this? It is J”K bat Rowling’s. It happened that J”K bat Rowling discovered a thief selling her book. She said, “You owe me the value of all the books you have sold.” The thief said, “Only one was yours, and I paid for it.” She asked, “Is it that you have sold plain paper in the marketplace? You have sold my story. You took one book and made a thousand, and behold, they are all my work, and those who bought, bought because of my name, not yours.” As we stated elsewhere, “When a man stamps several coins with one die, they are all similar.”

Mar Disney says, “You do pay the inheritors.” But note the contradiction: the inheritors of Disney took from Bnai Grimm and Rav Hans Ben Anders the Christian and did not pay. This is not difficult: Mar Disney ruled in a case where the inheritors are known, and there they did not know the inheritors and could not find them. Rav Tolkien asks, can the dead own their thoughts? Surely all who learn from a story are the inheritors.