As I sit here eating my Burger King French Fries and McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger, (ketchup only, of course), I can’t help but think of a recent conversation I had with my very innovative 11 year old son Joey.   We had just left the doctor’s office and were a bit pressed for time, so we decided to stop at Burger King for lunch on the way to our next destination.  I ordered the BK Whopper Jr. with Fries and a Soda and Joey chose the Chicken Fries with Fries and a Soda as well.

While enjoying my BK fries and not so much enjoying my Whopper Jr. I said to my son “McDonald’s Burgers are so much better than Burger King’s, but Burger King makes the best fries!”  I recall as early back as my first year in college, driving through the McDonald’s drive through for my Quarter Pounder with cheese and you guessed it, ketchup only.  And then I’d drive up the street to the Burger King and order my fries. I have always felt this way and I am sure there are many others that feel the same.  But I digress.

After my comment, Joey looked at me and nonchalant as could be he said, “Too bad you can’t have a company that sells both.  Maybe we should start our own company!”  My son is always “inventing” things, from fast cars of the future to children’s games.  I’ve got hundreds of his “patent drawings.”  My response to Joey, which I said with a sly chuckle was, “Well if we did start a company like that, then we’d have to steal the recipes.”  And so the wheels in my mind started to turn.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is the first in a two part series that will attempt to answer a hypothetical copyright infringement question surrounding the movie and book “I am Legend.”  This post discusses the differences and similarities between the book and the movie and the next post (during the week of January 21, 2008) will address the law associated with determining whether there would have been copyright infringement.  If you have not seen the movie or read the book “I am Legend,” and you plan to, you probably do not want to read this post until you have.

Last week my husband and I went to the movies to see Will Smith in “I am Legend.”  I had received the book for Christmas and tried to get at least a third of the way through it before seeing the movie.  I was surprised in reading only the first few chapters to learn that there were quite a few differences between the movie and the book.