Rob of OrangeJack Blog writes about the Portland tattoo artist suing an NBA player (the names are not important to me, but the NBA player is Rasheed Wallace of the Detroit Pistons).

While the basketball aspect is not important to me, it does bring up the subject of intellectual property rights, which does interest me. See in addition to being a Christian church minister, I am a Visual Basic developer. I know the time and energy that goes into a piece of intellectual property.

Too often, I think people forget that a real person with real needs made that real piece of software, music, literature, etc. that they are holding in their hand. With all our modern technology we enjoy, it has become far too easy to copy and forget ownership (I bet this wasn't a problem right after Gutenberg invented the printing press). Just because something is easy to copy, doesn't mean it is right to copy.

The ever controversial Ten Commandments states "You shall not steal." (Commandment #8, Exodus 20:15) and "You shall not covet . . . anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Commandment #10, Exodus 20:17). So as God-fearing people, we should seek to respect the intellectual property rights of others (See also Philippians 2:3-4).