You mix up patents and copyright. It’s not required for you to patent everything you publish, you simply own it and people are not allowed (by law) to just take

You mix up patents and copyright. It’s not required for you to patent everything you publish, you simply own it and people are not allowed (by law) to just take it and use in whatever way they want (e.g., alter it and pass as their own). You may allow this by distributing it under a permissive license, or the platform you use to publish it may have terms that give it certain rights to your work, but by default you own the work and can fully control how it is allowed to be used. Which principle OpenAI is basically throwing out of the window. People who do the actual work do so because they take pride in it. The work is their child, and they feel valued because people know and appreciate them for doing it. If you believe that most people who do the actual original work do so without any pride or concern for recognition or control over their work, then you are living in a different world than I.