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130 TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY spiration means is a matter between you and your conscience, since it is not easy to draw an exact line that may not be crossed. Suppose that you read a story of a girl who has married the wrong man. He treats her brutally. She shoots him, not alto- gether in self-defense. The purpose of the book is to argue that a .32 bullet for the man is better than an arsenic tablet for the woman. If you write of a woman who marries the wrong man and shoots him, you've taken too much from the story. Suppose you argue that she should have left him, should have tried harder to reform him or, in short, anything but killing him. The further you get away from the story, the safer you are from a charge of theft. You'll probably stay within the legal rights. But suppose that this story gave you the idea of a similar match in which the birth of a child drove the pair still further apart but its death united them. In such a case you can take your check with a clear con- science, for you have not stolen the idea. You have merely given an impetus to your own imagination through reading the product of another imagination. That, perhaps, is the surest test. If you work your imagination and direct it rightly, you have produced instead of copying. You can take the star.t or the finish or perhaps take a part of the middle and use it for a start. Once you have a start, if you possess imagination, the rest is easy, but if you have no imagina- tion you cannot write photoplays and it is useless to try and be- come a literary burglar because your sins will find you out. There is a commercial as well as moral side to this matter. You may be able to sell a few stolen stories but you'll soon become known for a thief and have that reputation precede you into studios you never visited. More than one promising career has been wrecked by taking too much inspiration. If the above paragraphs do not apply to you, they are not meant for you, but so many take up photoplay without previous literary experience that it seems to be necessary to lay down these facts with seemingly undue emphasis for the benefit of a few. Now for copyright itself. If you have produced a play, a book, a lecture, a painting, a song, a statue, a drawing, a map, or a de- sign and fear to publish the same lest others copy your idea, the government says in effect: "Go ahead and dedicate your work to the public, then give a copy to the Register of Copyrights. If John Smith reproduces your work he will have to stop it and give you all the money he has made, because we have enacted a set of