Writing your own story around the same ideas is not plagiarism; at worst, it's being unoriginal.

I've reached an age at which I'd rather pay more for something that "just works" than roll up my sleeves, reach for a spanner, and make it work. Time is money, and the older we get the less of it we've got left.

Any replacement to the current copyright position (life plus 70 years) needs to have an answer lined up for this, and similar, messy edge cases.

My gut feeling is that SF as we know it today is actually a heavily propagandized field that grew out of a specific set of cultural trends running in the USA and Europe between 1918 and 1950, during the post-imperial modernization period.

The trouble is, if you go too far towards being polite, the label that applies is "doormat".

Lawyers do not mix with diplomacy.

I was an early adopter: have been on the internet continuously since late 1989, barring a six-month loss of access in the early 90s.