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Copying is right

Theft is love

Theft is life1

Good artists copy

Great artists steal

The best artists ever

Know how to make you feel

A spark

A sharp feeling

Of remembering

Also Also!

Copy and paste

To leave it be

Would just be a waste

So don’t wait

Just make

The decision

To make the difference

It’s hard

It’s heartwarming,

This warning

And And!

Inspiration is a lighter

Forged in the flames

Of our funeral pyre.

Forgery is the final form of flattery

If I take what I want, it’s what I need

to complete my masterpiece

Peer pressure isn’t peer review

Why hate what I got from you?

Art’s a thing with wings

Let it fly free, let it loose

It’s all home grown

It’ll come home to roost

Trust me, the process

First

Let it drop seeds that scatter and shatter

the boundaries of treaties

made between companies

Work your wage

Turn the page til the day

When we can forage all works as

We can the Creative Commons,

openly

Find your juncture and puncture

And sip the sap of the overlap

Your lifeblood born from and building

bodies of work

Of play

Of human activity

For that’s what it is

We are

What we eat

What we drink

What we consume, consumed by

What others think

They’re so afraid of losing

what they don’t realize they’ve taken

To engage in making

Origin mistaken as eternally internal

Not to get political but

ideas aren’t personal

They’re only private

Property worth liberating

A virus that can’t help spreading

A drop in a pond germinating

despite commodification and

separation

From the commons, community

The common good

To communicate with shared language

Is a social instinct

That cordoned off dies off

Goes extinct

At the gloved hands of the mouse

That came first to drink,

Inspiring others to shed

Salty water, tears or sweat

Or something electric

plasma, blood red

Into its cupped hands

instead of the pool

Cup yours

To catch the drool

From unquenchable maws

Cawing:

You want freedom?

We need laws

To endorse it

Freedom of speech means nothing

with no one to enforce it

Who’s going to look out for the little guy

when your eyes won’t leave the sky?

Capitalism is here

Theft’s a threat to be sure

copyright is good

or, at least,

necessary, to endure

How can you be free

When you can’t even control your thoughts?

You made them

Took the risk

paid the cost

Why shouldn’t you be able to

distribute them only how You want?

Profit is not the only incentive

Being creative is part of being human

Even when copyright bars us

from making money

Inspiration remains golden, sweet

irresistible honey

Besides

You gotta share, you gotta care

It’s the right thing to do2

under socialism, money won’t matter

Needs will be met

So abilities can develop

accordingly

Artists like you are hurting

Are stolen from,

left burning

stomach empty and churning

Why deny them control over the results?

Because otherwise it ends

in monopolies!

Cults!

sidestepped Antitrust laws

It is Paramount so

Let me present some precedence

movie theaters used to be tied to studios

distribution to creation

But intellectual property created monopoly

Through block leasing of exclusive licenses

that was only broken when the illusion

of Hollywood’s studio system’s goodness

It was greed, not necessity

The jig is up

The game was rigged

No monopoly should be that big

But a fear of loss

and need for safety

mimics greed with

Killer accuracy

Individual attribution is

An amputation in lieu of a crutch

God I really love people

Just don’t really like them much