Saying that "providing works that other people are free to build on doesn't do anything for the artist" is rather short-sighted. Imagine someone living on a ri

Saying that "providing works that other people are free to build on doesn't do anything for the artist" is rather short-sighted. Imagine someone living on a river saying, "Keeping the river water clean doesn't do anything for me!" OK, maybe your pollution doesn't affect you, it only affects people downstream of you. But if the people upstream pollute the river, you'll wish they hadn't. It's also untrue that artists are distinct from remixers. Is "West Side Story" just a remix of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"? I think often of The Time John Fogerty Was Sued for Ripping Off John Fogerty: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-was-sued-ripping-john-fogerty https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-... Fogerty was just trying to write songs, but unsurprisingly his new songs sounded similar to his old songs, which had ended up under someone else's control. Was he "remixing" himself? Making art that is entirely new and does not relate to or reflect on any past art is almost impossible. As Lessig put it: - Creativity always builds on the past - The past tries to control the creativity that builds upon it - Free societies enable creativity by limiting this power of the past - Ours is less and less a free society