ideas are not property?

It seems that any time I ask someone in my field about copyright, the answer is: "Carrie, it depends." In terms of legality, copyright is the grayist of gray areas and the law is being changed and determined as we look on. In the digital age, there is no simple answer to ownership. Comparing the sharing of intellectual property to stealing of real property oversimplifies the issues at hand and provides no real answers. As James Hilton reminds us in his insightful article "In Praise of Sharing", someone whose car is stolen no longer has use of that property. Whereas when creative content is shared or reused or repurposed, the owners are not deprived in the same way. They still retain the use of their "property". The free exchange of ideas is necessary to our progress and success as a democratic society. Locking down the access to and use of creative property will not only hinder our innovation, but it will also bring about a culture of individual ownership in which sharing and collaboration is considered detrimental and undesirable. This would ultimately limit our potential as educators to continue our legacy of scholarship and creation that, when shared, is central to learning.