About this video
A reading-comprehension walkthrough of a main-point question. The passage argues that tangible-object theories of copyright and intellectual property, which treat ideas like physical property, are problematic because ideas cannot be owned in the same way and retained rights are not fully explained. The instructor compares each answer choice to the passage and rejects choices that are partial, too broad, or misread.
You'll be able to
- identify the main point of a passage before reading the answer choices.
- eliminate answer choices that are partly true but not the main point.
- explain why an answer that repeats passage wording can still be wrong.
Key words
- Main point
- The central claim the whole passage builds toward, not one detail from a single paragraph.
- Tangible-object theory
- The view that intellectual property rights can be explained purely in terms of ownership of physical objects.
- Retained rights
- Rights a creator keeps over a work, which the passage argues the tangible-object view cannot explain.
- Distractor
- An answer choice that is partly true or uses passage wording but does not match the main point.
Transcript
- [Instructor] Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage? So usually each group of questions after a reading passage has to do with the main idea of the passage. Sometimes it would be, what is the best title for this passage, and a good way to approach them is to fix in your brain what you're looking for, before you start looking.
In this case, the main point of the passage was that the tangible-object theory of copyright is a little bit problematic, because of this idea of retained rights and also the idea that there should be some retained rights on ideas. So let's see what we can find here, see what we can match.
A, copyright and other intellectual-property rights can be explained as logical extensions of the right to own concrete objects. No, that isn't right, this misses this idea of tangible object theory being somewhat problematic, which is kinda the point of the passage, so we don't wanna miss out on that, so, A is not right.
B, attempts to explain copyright and similar intellectual property rights, purely in terms of rights to ownership of physical objects, are ultimately misguided. Okay, that looks really good. This is a little bit negative, ultimately misguided is good, that last paragraph was saying, I'm sorry, but tangible object theory does not cover everything, it's not the be-all, end-all.
B is looking mighty good. Let's see what C, D, and E have to say to us. C, copyrighting a work amounts to securing official recognition of one's intention to retain certain rights to that work. Okay, well that was lifted directly from the second paragraph, but that isn't the main point of the passage, as we've already identified it.
So this is a partial answer, it's something that was in the passage, but it is by no means the main point. D, explanations of copyright and other intellectual-property rights, in terms of rights to ownership of tangible objects, fail to consider the argument that ideas should be allowed to circulate freely.
Okay, so D identifies this idea that tangible-object copyright theory fails in some regard, but is this the way in which they fail? Do they fail to consider the argument that ideas should be allowed to circulate freely? No, they fail to consider the argument that ideas can't be transferred, the ownership of ideas can't be transferred in that way.
It's not that they should be allowed to circulate freely. This is what makes D wrong. E, under the tangible-object theory of intellectual property, rights of ownership are straightforwardly applicable to both ideas and physical objects. While the author does say that this is what tangible-object theorists believe, the main point of the passage is that tangible-object theory does not cover everything and it is somewhat problematic, so this E is not the right answer.
So let's go back and have another look at our right answer, which is B. Attempts to explain copyright and similar intellectual-property rights, purely in terms of rights to ownership of physical objects, okay, so this sums up tangible-object copyright theory, are ultimately misguided.
So that was the third paragraph that found problems with it, so this must be our answer.
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