Summarizing your last point: everything is a remix. To people with a deep understanding of technology, it's clear that everything builds upon prior art and some of the best "innovation" is pulling together insights from many fields (many of the Mathematics).

Which is why it's so infuriating to read Leonardo's grandstanding "Those who have created a new intellectual object have to right to exploit it". What exactly did this "creation" build on? It was not produced in isolation.