Hello, search engine listeners. Before we begin this week, some exciting news. I mean, exciting.

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Okay, on with the show after these ads. The

The Welcome to Search Engine.

This week, a question, a medium-sized question.

When is it okay to copy somebody else's idea?

Their song, their joke, their story.

What is the difference between

inspiration and a rip-off? Most of us agree that stealing ideas is wrong, but we also all know

that it's complicated. All artists borrow. There's such thing as inspiration. If the thing

borrowed is changed enough, transformed, recontextualized, reimagined, it's okay.

So the actual determination,

unless we're talking about word for word plagiarism,

can be hard to make.

Or hard for most of us.

...