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26 Ecstasy of Influence, in Harper’s Magazine 61 (Feb. 2007). Or as Mary Shelley once wrote, there is no such thing as “creating out of [a] void.” Frankenstein ix (1831).

Consider, in light of those authorial references, how the majority’s factor 1 analysis might play out in literature. And why not start with the best? Shakespeare borrowed over and over and over. See, e.g., 8 Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare 351–352 (G. Bullough ed. 1975) (“Shakespeare was an adapter of other men’s tales and plays; he liked to build a new construction on something given”). I could point to a whole slew of works, but let’s take Romeo and Juliet as an example. Shakespeare’s version copied most directly from Arthur Brooke’s The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, written a few decades earlier (though of course Brooke copied from someone, and that person copied from someone, and that person … going back at least to Ovid’s story about Pyramus and Thisbe). Shakespeare took plot, characters, themes, even passages: The friar’s line to Romeo, “Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art,” appeared in Brooke as “Art thou a man? The shape saith so thou art.” Bullough 387. (Shakespeare was, among other things, a good editor.) Of course Shakespeare also added loads of genius, and so made the borrowed stories “uniquely Shakespearian.” G. Williams, Shakespeare’s Basic Plot Situation, 2 Shakespeare Quarterly No. 4, p. 313 (Oct. 1951). But on the majority’s analysis? The two works—Shakespeare’s and Brooke’s—are just two stories of star-crossed lovers written for commercial gain. Shakespeare would not qualify for fair use; he would not even