RC Question 15 Explanation
DISCUSSION: There were two things in passage A but not passage B:
- Copyright protections for comedy, and why comedians don’t use them
- How social norms are enforced
Either one could be the answer. Though question 14 already used the second, so it will probably be the first.
Note: if something is discussed in passage B, you can eliminate the answer without considering passage A. This question asks for something not in passage B.
___________
- Both passages mentioned this. At the end of paragraph 3, passage A says comedians can use the social norms to regulate how their jokes are transferred. Meanwhile, in paragraph 2 passage B says one social norm among chefs allows them to share recipes while keeping them a trade secret.
- CORRECT. The end of paragraph 1 in passage A mentions this: it is costly and difficult to enforce copyright on jokes.
Passage B didn’t mention this theme, because there is no copyright for recipes! And patents are only rarely available for recipes. So, chefs aren’t deciding not to use legal protections. Instead, they have no legal protections. Big difference. - Passage B did mention patent law. It said most recipes are not patentable. So, the answer is that patents can only protect the output of chefs to a limited extent.
- This is clear in both passages: comedians views jokes as intellectual property, chefs view recipes as intellectual property.
- Passage A reallllllly sounds like it discusses specific social norms, but it actually doesn’t. Go ahead, look at passage A and see if you can tell me a single social norm it says Comedians use.
“Don’t steal jokes” is not specific enough to be a social norm. It is the social norms that define what stealing is and what you specific actions aren’t allowed to do.
For example, many in society believe “respect your elders”. But that isn’t really specific enough to be a social norm. Social norms are the actions, such as “listen when elders talk”, “use polite language when speaking to elders”, etc. Or the final paragraph of the chef passage shows example of social norms: if you share a recipe, you can forbide resharing, etc. “Don’t steal recipes” wouldn’t be specific, by contrast.
For (A), I can see that they addressed sharing in passage B, but does “transfer” in passage A count as addressing the issue of sharing jokes? I thought “transfer,” in this context, meant that a comedian assigns their ownership “right” in the joke to another comedian. Perhaps something different than simply licensing the joke to another comedian, or sharing the content of the joke with another comedian?
Paragraph 3 in Passage A says that comedians use this informal system to “assert ownership of the jokes” and “regulate their use and transfer”. We also know that this system is within the world of stand-up comedy (aka with their colleagues). It’s pretty much exactly in line with what answer A says (sharing creative work with colleagues without sacrificing IP rights). I wouldn’t get too hung up on the mechanics of the transfer; the whole point of the two passages is creating an informal, social system that enforces IP rights. There’s no actual legal transaction going on. Let me know if you need further clarification!