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No, an artist absolutely should have a reasonable expectation that their improv at a coffee shop won't be ripped off next week by a billion dollar publisher.

> Don't share it with them until they sign.

Which would be possible in a situation where someone has the power to do so, but this isn't always the case. In industries where there are large negotiating power imbalances between creators and others they work with, you will typically find that creators have little to no negotiation power. There's a reason we have many legal protections in many parts of the law outside of contract law.

> If you don't trust your spouse then get a prenup. The other categories aren't special.

A spouse is the most formal of the examples I listed. And a spouse in many places is someone you've already entered into a formal legal agreement with. But to the contrary, I don't think it is reasonable to expect people bring NDAs to a first date.

> That said, if your work is so easy to copy it probably wasn't (or shouldn't have been) valuable to begin with. Implementation matters more than ideas. So most of these concerns are silly to me.

The concept of privacy isn't predicated on monetary value.



> No, an artist absolutely should have a reasonable expectation that their improv at a coffee shop won't be ripped off next week by a billion dollar publisher.

Nah. There's no way for that artist to know if some other artist did the exact same bit a week earlier. If they happened to have done so, tough luck! Doesn't matter that you came up with it independently on your own.

> Which would be possible in a situation where someone has the power to do so, but this isn't always the case. In industries where there are large negotiating power imbalances between creators and others they work with, you will typically find that creators have little to no negotiation power. There's a reason we have many legal protections in many parts of the law outside of contract law.

So don't share it with them if you don't want to take the risk and you also don't want to enter into an agreement.

> A spouse is the most formal of the examples I listed. And a spouse in many places is someone you've already entered into a formal legal agreement with. But to the contrary, I don't think it is reasonable to expect people bring NDAs to a first date.

So don't share it with them if you don't want to take the risk and you also don't want to enter into an agreement.

> The concept of privacy isn't predicated on monetary value.

Indeed, it's predicated on privacy. Don't share what you don't want to share.


> Nah. There's no way for that artist to know if some other artist did the exact same bit a week earlier. If they happened to have done so, tough luck! Doesn't matter that you came up with it independently on your own.

If this should happen, this previous artist would be able to claim copyright on his creation. That is what copyright is about, protecting your creative creations. If you write a song and perform it on the streets for free, no one should be able to just take the song and perform it themselves without your permission.




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