yeah... the nautre of VS (and other CCGs) makes it so that even if you ARE copying other people's ideas, you won't always be able to copy the intent behind it.
you can copy a decklist, but you won't always know why certain cards are in there (or how it all interacts together) and, thus, won't be able to effectively "steal" the deck.

well, no if your going to just use it.

yes if you claim it is your idea.

That brings up one of our crux points when we apply this philosophy to Vs. System. It is an effect of TCG history that certain players become the "author" of certain decks. We all have similar ideas when a set comes out, but then someone is always the first to win with it. We used to say that the first person to win a PCQ or make money at a 10K was the "rightful owner" of the deck archetype. Do we still agree with that?

We have a specific example from this weekend, and it twists the issue even tighter. Luke "BeastBoy123" Evich played Thunder Gang in our EA Savage Beatdown tournament. I knocked him out of the Top 8, but it was his original combination and it is good. Brent "Makaveli" Eustice won the Costa Mesa PCQ with the deck, since Luke had shared it with him.

Who's deck is it?

No you cannot steal ideas because sooner or later someone will have the same thought process as you and will make something similar or the same thing as you did. The only way that you can prove that someone actually did steal something from you is if they saw what you created after you copyrighted it and created something very similar to it.
That being said...

#### you people who think that this is on topic for VS. I had sex with my girlfriend last night, but I thought about VS at the same time. Maybe I could make a thread about it because you know it does technically meet the standards of GD correct? Wrong.:mad:

Random Conjecture =/= Banning

Flaming = Banning

But, judging by the date under your name, you already knew that.

Calm down or walk away.

We don't need this.

Batshido

That was great. It is taking all the willpower in the world for me not to respond. Thanks, my students are asking me what I was laughing about!

Clearly just a troll, everyone knows people who play VS don't have girlfriends (and certainly don't have sex).

I haven't read through everyone's posts yet, because I hoped that no one else had posted this yet:

'There is nothing new under the sun.'
- God, as told by a really old and dead guy


Humans by nature lack the ability to create new and original thought.
This is the very nature of humanity. We have the ability to add our own new and original concepts to a subject, but we couldn't create the subject.

No problem Stu, its what I'm here for.:)

Why is it that people always end up calling me names?

:laughing until the tears pour out:

lol, stu

< wasn't talking about stu, by the way>

Just referring to the really old looking Hippie teacher who looks like Stu.;)

And we both get crucified. Alot.

(I always steal that "Love Your Enemies" idea too.)

I'm beginning to think that Stu is trying to steal his ideas from Ye Olde Original Hippy....

Back on topic:

There's a cartoon from either early 2000's or late 1990's (I don't remember which) that I used to watch before school when I was a teen, and it was something about Dr. Catz, who wasn't a cat, but, rather, a psychologist. It was the precursor to Home Videos, with similar animation, and it even uses the same voice actor who does Coach McGurk now. Anyway, in one of the episodes, one of Dr. Catz' patients is sitting there and just rambling, and (s)he says, "I'm worried that I think too much. And then I worry that maybe I don't think enough. Or maybe if I think just the right amount, but that thought put me over." That subject is actually one that I had thought about all the time previous to seeing the show (although I think it was more in a joking nature than I normally take that thought process).

To stick with the cartoons, there's also a South Park with the recurring line, "Simpsons did it!" The joke is, of course, that while the show wasn't TRYING to steal from Simpsons, they might've used some similar ideas. At the end of the show, they conclude that even the Simpsons has probably stolen from other shows. I remember seeing an episode of Cheers where one of the people says, "Stupid like a fox!" proudly, which at least 10 years later the Simpsons reproduced by having Homer say the exact same thing, just as proud of his accomplishment.

However, this doesn't mean that these shows all ripped off of each other for their ideas. I think that people still have original thought, as thoughts are always original each time someone thinks it. (To steal a phrase, "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you!") This is, of course, the all-serving, all-proving relativity argument (you can start off any argument by saying "Well, relatively speaking..." and then give your side of the argument relative to something that makes it true and always be correct). That's right, it's not even my own argument.

We can even look at the simple notion that since no one lives in a vacuum, everyone's thoughts and ideas are at least somewhat influenced by outside sources, so everyone steals at least something for every thought they have. It's a rarely-enforced thought crime, actually.

If you haven't noticed, I've stolen a collection of ideas from other sources. Is my post blatant plagiarism? No, because all of this is called upon from my own learning experience and things I've picked up over the years. We can incorporate others' thoughts and ideas into our own, but that doesn't make us thieves in and of itself. In my opinion, the line for plagiarism should be fairly close to cut and paste.

In other words, people can still be original, but ideas can not.

P.S. Tigos, stu creates threads like these for people like me.

(It's actually more sinister than that. I create these threads for people like you to turn me on with your excellent thoughts.)

Thanks Gabe, you KNOW that I was holding my breath for you to bring some real Philosophy into this... and you did not disappoint. I can die a happy man. Again.