Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is theft.

This is the point I wanted to contend and is the main premise I disagree with. In my opinion, nothing was taken, at most borrowed, by the author of the book.

But he published a freaking book!

Yes, is it not great?

Do you think Zack Snyder should get to put out a Rebel Moon and call it “Rebel Moon: A Star Wars Story” without getting permission or paying for licensing?

In my dreams, yes.

Is this the reality this sub believes we live in? If you write a novel and I read it and soon start writing better more successful stories based explicitly on your characters without crediting you or sharing in my profit, how would you feel?

I would be fucking thrilled to be honest. If someone not only cited my research, but actually improved on it I would schedule a meeting to talk with them ASAP.

Should your work be public domain? Is that what you (collective) feel is best for “the public”?

YES. Everything that is published should be publicly available as default. I understand that this would require another method for financing those that actually make new stuff, but that is something that is sorely needed anyway. What usually happens is that the actual creators are left with pennies while legal entities own IP almost indefinitely.

Also, I want to add that had IP laws always been what they are today, much great work from the past (that is now enjoying protection by copyright) could not have existed. I also ask how say the dwarves in Tolkien's tales could be copyrighted when they are based on stories about dwarves from Norse mythology?

TL;DR there was a special time when all work got copyrighted into oblivion. It has to end so that humanity can create more cool new stuff just as we did back then.