Copyright? Idea theft

#1 You shouldn't have to worry. The community here is pretty nice. If you ask them not to, they probably won't.

#2 You cant protect IDEAS from theft.
You can only protect content. If the idea is on paper, with places, names and plot- that is a copyright-able 'thing'.
The IDEA behind the game TETRIS is a perfect example, or the Rubik's Cube, both of what are not covered by copyright- the mechanics of TETRIS and Rubik's Cube are able to cover by copyright.
A plot line is free game, but the characters and content that make the plot a story are able to be copyrighted. Think of how many versions of Red Riding Hood there are, compared to the copyrighted version by Brothers Grimm.

#3 Young rebellious teenager's village is destroyed and he is cast out by the survivors...BUT luckily, he is chosen by a nebulous entity under the village (that consequentially destroyed it on discovery and choose him) as the savior of the world. Now he must talk to dragons, ride airships, and crash flying cities into the earth before he finished my dark and compelling storyline. There must also be someone broody and irritating (often the rebellious teenager), a cute pink furry thing that people will call kawaii regardless of whether its origin is Japanese or not, and a spunky know-it-all-but-totally-sensitive princess in disguise. Her disguise fools everyone inside and outside of the castle, including her father the king and her nursemaid, except for the gate guard. At some point you will fight naked spider chicks.

Copyright (c) 2007, David Blake. Retroactive.

#4 There you go. Intellectual copyright. And i guess names are not protected, that seems logical.

#5 That page says it will be removed in April.
Here is the US government's FAQ on copyright and and on protecting ideas.
Note Firefox 2 didn't display the 2nd page, I had to use IE 7...

#6 I will patent the idea of stealing others ideas.

#7 Not if I steal that I idea and patent it first!

#8 @Stefan & Richard
I will just patent stealing then.

#9 I see. Thanks for the quick and helpful responses ^_^

#10 Ideas are cheap, cheap, cheap. Ideas are nothing. It's making them happen that is something.

I told a guy in a bar that I was making a video game, and of course he immediately assumed that I would have tons of money and be able to hire him (hopefully, sure, but far from certainty!). Anyway I asked what he could do and he told me about how brilliantly creative he was. No skills, just raw creativity, but really, really brilliant.

Yeah, well, me too. But what can you DO?

Another example is a friend of mine who had a stamp collecting business. He was fond of telling everyone who would listen exactly how he ran his business, who his suppliers were, how to market and sell stamps. Because he knew that no one, no one, would ever do it. And he was right!

Point being...I wouldn't worry about anyone stealing ideas. But if you really think it's that good...better keep it to yourself.

#11 I agree with Lee.
One of my friends tells everyone his ideas. From that he gets feed back immediately on how good the idea is and he knows few if any would have the ability to complete the task. If they could, well the idea wasn't very complex.

Quote:
If I say "Ya know what would be a great game" and someone else comes by and says "Hey, that's a good idea. I'll just take that..."

I think its far more likely that someone will come and say "Hey, thats just like " That does happen here. Man it sucks when someone 5 years ago stole the idea I thought of today! :-)

edit - clarity