Also, I think it is a valuable mental exercise to ask someone who in fact owns the fruits of their labor. If you spend some time thinking about the implications you may find that the possible answers are not so "simple" as you may at first think.

On the other hand, some find that the question produces a fair amount of anxiety and so they may resort to verbal devices designed to diminish the value of the question, rather than trying to answer it.

and yeah, every fetus about to be born in the us signs a licensing agreement around the third trimester. it's entirely comparable to being a licensed apple developer.