In my youth, I loved getting involved with online arguments. For some reason, as I've aged, I just walk away from the goofy things. To a degree, this feels like an argument, and it's online, so I ought to be walking away... but... There's something that's drawing me back, maybe it's just the topic. Silly though I find it, I take writing kind of seriously (and I'm mildly ashamed to be writing that sentence down).

I went back through the topic again. I still feel like you largely got honest, if inadequate for you, answers. I went back and reread my own responses especially carefully and I'm still not quite seeing what you are. That has to be partly a failing on my part (and probably why my screenplays sucked), but I don't think it's completely on my end. A big part of the reason why you're not seeing HUGE copyright concerns from many of us is because the overriding majority of what we write is in no way original. Not even a little bit. I can copyright my precise words on SQL Server backups, but I can't copyright SQL Server backups, because Microsoft owns that copyright. So maybe our mutual confusion, yours and ours, arises from that understanding. I don't feel that my work is terribly original because the vast majority of it is explained through Microsoft resources. In most cases, at best, I'm rephrasing, rearranging, and drawing connections between work that was already done elsewhere. And, with only a few exceptions, that's what everyone else writing about SQL Server is doing as well. Maybe that is the reason we weren't able to give you the legal answers you were looking for.

I am trying to write this from a stand point of engagement, not argument. I'm just getting a sense of attack from you in a place where I think you got some pretty good answers (OK, Jeff popped you a couple of times, but that's Jeff and we love him for it. My turn Jeff). I'm engaging, where I would normally just disappear, because I'm trying to understand. Help me out, but assume I don't have your particular viewpoint on this, not that I understand it your way and I'm just refusing to give you what you need.