This article examines how current debates on intellectual property, and in particular concern for the maintenance of the biological commons, might extend to examples of literary reaction. If, as Rajasthani writer Vijay Dan Detha urges, the responsibility of a writer is to nurture the 'seed' of a story, how might we consider the implications of this metaphor - of multiple originals and copies, germination, growth - in the light of current TRIPS debates? How might we productively explore the paradox of copyright residing in the living person of an author when a text has been multiply created?