Let’s suppose you have this super-amazing, sparkly idea and you know it’s a winner and you realize you have to copyright it right now.  (After all you don’t want someone to steal your super-amazing, sparkly idea, right?)  You call up a lawyer friend and ask what you need to do to copyright your super-amazing, sparkly idea and lawyer friend says:

Your heart sinks.  It seems so unfair!  Your idea is so super-amazing and sparkly, someone’s bound to steal it and make gazillions.  Why can’t you protect your idea?

Here are two things to remember:

1) You can protect your idea.  It’s called a trade secret, so as long as you don’t spill the secret, it’s protected.  If you want to protect your idea, zip the lip.

2) The idea is not the book.  We’ve talked about what makes ideas unique and one of the most important things to remember is that ideas are not books.  You could have two books with very similar ideas and yet the execution of the concept turns out to be completely different.  This is true in works outside of literature too.

Examples:

Dracula vs. Twilight
These two books couldn’t be more different.  But, if you strip away all the peripheral details, the idea behind these books is strangely similar.

Antz vs. A Bug’s Life
Anyone who’s ever seen both of these movies knows that while the concept is the same, the execution couldn’t be more different.  Even looking at the DVD covers you get a sense that these are two very different movies.