Way to completely miss the point! The name-calling is especially constructive, too.

I said "I understand why a lot of people question IP laws in general..."

Then, in your rush to use your ever-so-clever language like "douchebag" (the 80s called, BTW, they want their slang back) and to talk about "my ideas" and "my theory," you completely ignored this ever-so-important part of the sentence.

You see, you don't think ANYTHING is protected as IP. I asked, however, that if A is protected, why should it be so surprising that B is protected. You then started foaming at the mouth and ranting without having actually understood what you were reading.

Why am I bothering to explain this? Sigh. I must me new here.

Yeah, I know. I'm a cataloger. I was just responding to one specific comment about DDC.

"Sorry to break it for you..."

Since I never said you were wrong, what exactly are you "breaking for me?"

You keep insisting that I am defending IP law as it currently exists, which I never did.

Um, anybody who knew more than what they learned in elementary school about the DDC (it's actually called the Dewey Decimal Classification) to begin with probably knew that. Admittedly, that's not very many people, unfortunately. I understand why a lot of people question IP laws in general, but I don't understand why so many people are surprised to find out that the DDC is a piece of IP like any other.

Now, the fact that one needs to pay to get the full version of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) confuses me a little more, since it's actually a governement-created resource. Well, actually I guess I do know. LC, and especially it's under-appreciated traditional services, like cataloging, classification and authority control are so underfunded that they actually need to charge money to libraries to keep those projects alive. Alas.