Benefiting from Others

Once in a while someone has an idea that completely and utterly relies on someone else's, though not consider copyright infringement, it crosses the boundaries of intellectual property.

Intellectual property is a topic that has been argued long and hard for the past couple of years. Peer to peer sharing software and other technological advances have set the stage for this long debate.

However, this is not the case for Google Fight. Google fight is a site devoted to compare the rankings of a particular person against another based on Google searches. The site has a very clean and simple UI in which the user types in the two names to be staged for the fight. Once the fight starts a simple movie clip animation depicting the two characters fighting is presented, followed by the results. Though this site makes use of Google search power, I believe that it is very entertaining and creatively clever.

The bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with utilizing someone else's work to bring a new idea to life. However, the boundaries of intellectual property can be easily crossed. Be sure that when you are borrowing from someone you give full credit to the source and try your best to secure permission from the original author before posting your creations to the World Wide Web.