AP Question Option 2: Ownership

In today's society, intellectual properties are distinguished by a very thin line of original thought and stolen ownership. It is incredibly hard to create something new and unheard of; as a result, many philosophers question where that line is placed. Although it is true that copying ideas is stale and unoriginal, it is nearly impossible to not copy in the sense that all originality has already been used or claimed as someone else's; to have the unoriginal idea owned by yourself is to change it enough to create new thought and inspiration from that idea.

To own something is to have it completely to yourself - that no one else can take it away from you. It is in this case that it is impossible to have originality. Everything is based off of something, whether it is from previous experience or from an article in a book. Naturally, things are incorporated from other sources, which can be categorized as plagiarism and copying. However, it is not necessarily un-owe-able as rewording and paraphrasing can create different perspectives of the same topic. Otherwise, absolutely everything that is written is plagiarized, including this entire blog and practically most of the internet.

Society no longer has as many inventors as it did in the decades before today. It is simply because it is no longer needed for things to be created. Materialistic machines for comfort and convince has already been created and there is just a lack of claimable originality that people can use. From a simple coffee brewer to fancy apps on cell-phones, everything has been claimed and used. However, it is those people who put their own spin on things that are already created that can call that their own. The most common example is video games. Every video game starts with the most basic of ideas, something fresh and new; in the coming years, every gaming industry in the business is going to be copying that exact game style, but adding their own twist to things.

The world can no longer really hold new ideas. It can only reuse the old innovations created from long ago.