App developers have to deal with this every day. And it's call a free market in that context, I don't see the difference between that and art in this context.

App developers have to deal with this every day. And it's call a free market in that context, I don't see the difference between that and art in this context. People straight up clone every good app that shows up on the app markets and you might as well make and sell templates for any good looking, well designed web site you own because someone is going to scrape it and do that for you if you don't. That is what we have to deal with in the software world all the time and any complaints there simply get a shrug and a "welcome to capitalism" from the more experienced developers. If it were stealing, the artists making the accusation could make their case in court or perhaps the companies could since they own the rights, but that also means the comic artists actually have no grounds for complaint, they sold their rights. You don't get to complain about the use of something you don't own anymore. I can understand the shock some of the comic artists must have had when discovering later in life that Lichtenstein had done this; but, their anger should be directed at the companies who gave them a bad deal as well as at themselves for accepting that raw deal and never looking for something better. For any actively working comic strip artists though, if you are aware someone is making 10x, 100x, 1000x off of very similar pieces based on your original work, you have no excuse to keep doing what you're doing. That person has demonstrated that you are wasting your time and giving up the rights to your work for pennies on the dollar compared to what your work could be worth. If you want to make millions too, the obvious thing to do is make a full sized image of anything you make for the comic strips and sell those in art galleries. If you can't do that under your current contracts, drop those contracts. You can always out compete copycats. You're the original, so you always have an edge there. And if you can't out compete Lichtenstein, then you must admit that he is doing something other than simply copying you. There's something he's got that people see as more valuable than just the image itself. Figure out what that is and do that too. By the way, even if your full sized images don't sell well, the fact that you are selling in art galleries gives you grounds to sue the guy if he keeps trying to copy your work. There were always ways to stop this guy or replicate his success, if any of those comic artists really wanted to. But they didn't start complaining until he was making a bunch more money than they were. That is just raw jealousy.