There's an old idea that once you release something you have created into the wild it is no longer really yours, but ours. Copyright and IP have never really prevented artistic theft, just slowed the ability to make money using someone else's IP. However, when you consider things such as the success of "Old Country Road" where a core characteristic of the song was a sample not originated from the artist themself, you can see how copyright and IP law really don't mean anything in the world of art. Information still wants to be free
"Artistic theft" isn't really ethically theft if someone has simply copied a work.
Imagine a small village. If John makes an axe, and Jim sees it and copies it, did Jim steal John's axe? Seems like there's only theft occurring if Jim claims to have designed it himself---stealing some of John's reputation as the designer and first maker of that kind of axe. Doesn't the whole village benefit from more abundant chopped wood? Or perhaps from cheaper lumber prices? True, John now has competition chopping wood, but perhaps he's got an advantage as a designer and he'll soon specialize as a carpenter or tool designer rather than just a wood chopper. Couldn't it be possible that copying ideas and attributing the persons who originate them enriches the entire village---including those who came up with the new ideas?
I find Christian philosopher Vern Poythress's ethical reasons why we should advocate for changing copyright laws to be insightful and persuasive... and I learned the axe inventor example from his article, https://frame-poythress.org/copyrights-and-copying-why-the-l....
In a world that is rapidly changing into tightly controlled presentation channels, banning of not tightly controlled information sharing channels, and ubiquitous AI backed bots sifting through any exchange in search of even the most farfetched resemblance and where spurious strikes mean tried guilty and sentenced until proven innocent, that point of view might be a tad naive.
Information never wanted to be free. It has no will. The freedom was the result of many people willing to stand against its confinement.
