#stolen off the internet | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miraphoenix · 5 months

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Right off the bean, this is not a callout post. I'd talk to the person this is about 1-on-1, but a) he's had me blocked for 4 years, and b) it's mutual. This is me venting on my personal blog, something that he decided to vague about me doing back when I had my first blog.

With that out of the way. I'm really fucking tired of people stealing from Valenth/Revecroir, and from its creator.

Years and years ago, when they were a literal child, my bff/queer life partner--for the purpose of this post, their name is Leupai--made lizard-critters with hands on their tongues and called them leupaks. Eventually, they ended up splitting off from Subeta where they worked at the time, making an affiliated petsite called Valenth where the leupaks featured quite prominently as creatures in a fantasy-meets-steampunk world.

Unfortunately, their boss was a piece of work, and following a rather large kerfluffle involving another petsite lifting other elements of my partner's work (namely, a dragon concept and a companion concept), my partner was fired by the Subeta head boss. The leupaks were renamed into leupai, and Valenth expanded into Revecroir. This was in 2014, give or take a few months.

Through about half of the Valenth era and into the Revecroir era, Leupai was dating someone else, who went by Sixar at the time, later Kismeti, and the two had a long-distance open relationship. Kismeti also did a fair amount of site art for Valenth, and described himself as Leupai's biggest fan; when he'd met Leupai originally, his username referenced leupaks, he had a bunch of leupak characters, and a leupak sona. I met both of them in 2013-2014, right around the close of Valenth, and started chatting with them both. Leupai was more responsive, Kismeti was more reserved, but I did the best I could.

Over the years, I kept trying to reach out to Kismeti, but found that Leupai was honestly more willing to talk with me, so I did become better friends with them. Note that I was friends with Leupai, and trying to be friends with Kismeti. We chatted, we sent memes, we played World of Warcraft, I bought folks pizza across the Pacific Ocean, you know the drill.

Through this, I became really familiar with Leupai's world, at that point named Revecroir. I got to know their lore, their worldbuilding, their current projects, and the leupai creatures themselves.

The leupai were--and are!--still fat lizards with paws on their tongues, who can open portals between worlds with acid in their claws, who transfer their consciousnesses to other bodies if one is destroyed, and whose strength comes from the realm of dreams and creativity. In the early days, in lore that wasn't publicized, leupai were roaming around to find a world to live on after Valenth. This was a project that was supposed to be worked on with Kismeti, but nothing really ever came of it. Eventually, Leupai kind of moved on from that storyline to write more about Revecroir itself.

At the same time, I tried asking Kismeti about his worldbuilding, because he had characters and allegedly a world of his own, but didn't really get a lot in the way of answers. I saw a lot of Sonic fanart, I saw a lot of homestuck, I saw a lot of MLP:FiM, I saw a lot of Captain Planet. Eventually, I kind of... Gave up asking? And that's on me, but frankly, if you ask someone to share their stuff and they don't share their stuff, I figure that's the signal to stop asking.

As time went on, though, I was seeing some cracks forming in the 10-year relationship between the two, and I was helping Leupai through a lot. I watched as he yelled at my best friend for not responding to messages fast enough. I watched as he made plans with Leupai and then fucked off to do other things for hours, leaving Leupai in the lurch and worried about his physical safety. I watched as he gaslit Leupai about their ability to use a computer. On one memorable instance, when Leupai's internet was unstable while we were all playing WoW together, Leupai left the voice call to go reset the router, and Kismeti decided that it was a great time to shit-talk Leupai's intelligence to me. For a half hour straight. Until Leupai rejoined the call.

Eventually, I visited Leupai in person and watched as they were broken down to tears by Kismeti failing to respect their boundaries for literal hours, until Leupai caved to Kismeti's preferences. That was a rough night, and I remember wondering why the fuck my best friend's partner was treating them so badly.

About a month and a half after I visited Leupai, they decided to break up with Kismeti, because they'd had enough of him verbally berating them for not responding fast enough to memes sent over instant message, among so many other things. He, to put it mildly, lost his shit.

(For the record, I know what went down, because Leupai had me read the messages sent back and forth, to make sure they were grounded, and were reading things right. I've seen logs going back 10 years. His original vague accused me of not knowing what I was talking about, but boy howdy I was either there, or have read the raw logs.)

Anyway, he begged for Leupai back. Leupai gave him a chance that he fucked up within a day. Leupai said goodbye and blocked him. He then started messaging me about this on discord, clearly trying to use me as a go-between to get to Leupai.

At the time, I was going through some Complex Feelings about my own abuse by various people in my life, triggered by his behavior, so was reblogging a lot of support stuff on my original blog. I guess he decided this was vaguing about him, because he made a vaguepost accusing me of not knowing all the details (unbeknownst to him, I'd read everything) and finally blocked me.

I figured this chapter in my life was done at this point, and moved the fuck on. Made a new blog because I didn't feel like getting all his shit off my old one, moved across the country, got a new job, the whole shebang. Leupai and I entered our odd QPP/partners/bffs/???? phase, and I genuinely didn't think much about him, unless I was helping listen to Leupai talk about stuff they'd gone through with him.

Until this year. When I saw some comment of his break containment and end up on my dash, under the name "riftclaw". I had a bit of an inkling, so I broke my "don't look" rule and looked at the linked toyhouse to confirm it was really him.

Turns out, riftclaws are... Lizard creatures. Who open portals between worlds with acid in their claws. Who are looking for a new world to call their own. And who have some divine properties, that may involve body switching.

And all of Kismeti/riftclaw's old leupai characters are now riftclaws.

Oh, and he was planning to make them into a closed species. To make money off them.

Now, leupai were decently popular back in the day. I still have leupai characters, and make some periodically from time to time. There's a tag on tumblr and everything; if you're reading this, there's a decent chance you remember Vee yourself, as a fair number of my followers were there too. People still talk about Valenth from time to time. Leupai still has a folder of old fanart from back in the day with some 800 pieces of art in it. They were, by all accounts, successful until they weren't.

But the height of popularity was back when Vee was still around, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The only new stuff in the tags is from an archive blog of old Vee assets.

Despite that, though. And I know this from messages between the pair, I know that Kismeti tore into Leupai repeatedly for "being more popular" and "having more eyes on their work". Even though "those eyes" didn't keep Leupai fed or housed, or really give them any income. Even though "those eyes" meant getting 50 notes on a tumblr post as opposed to 20. Even though "those eyes" just increased thievery and the constant pressure to be a Content Creator(tm), and were a major part of what drove Leupai off the internet entirely starting in 2018.

So imagine. Imagine for a moment. Being so hungry for clout and attention. That you steal your ex-partner's species concept that they've had since they were literally 8 years old, barely file off the serial numbers, and then make that your entire online persona four full years after your partner broke up with your ass twice for being an abusive piece of shit over a 10-year timeframe.

To borrow my own tags from this post, which got me thinking about all of this again?

#This is all to say; if you're jealous of someone else's success? Fine. Go have your emotion. But don't lift their shit.#Your emotions are valid; your actions aren't.

(Oh, and this is the smallest thing in the world, the least important piece of this? Riftclaws are already a thing from a game released in 2016 called Grim Dawn.)

#phoenix sounds #leupai #leupak #Valenth #Revecroir #I have a lot of feelings and a lot of emotions and a lot of frustration #Leupai's had their shit stolen three times now #Once when they were a kid; once by another petsite #And now once by their ex #Which is just... Honestly? I guess they've got an original idea because everyone else seems to be cribbing it #This is why the Revecroir setting's forever private now though #Leupai got run off the internet by this kind of thing (and much worse) and they're staying gone now #And this whole hbomberguy vid thing about plagiarism is just making me think about... How many people this impacts #How many artists have had their shit lifted and stolen by someone and how crushing that is #How many people that disenfranchises and removes from communities #I can attest that Revecroir is flourishing but it will *never* be seen again by outside eyes because of the repeated thefts #How many more things are like that I wonder? How many people stop making all together because of this sort of thing?#Ties into the sssniperwolf shit from a few months ago where she was freebooting stuff from much smaller creators and claiming it was hers #In her case we do know that there were small creators who stopped making after she stole their shit for millions of views on youtube #So it's not like this is some victimless crime #Anyway I think the constant searching for clout/visibility/reach/whatever the term de jour is?#Has made everything unfathomably worse in terms of theft and plagiarism #And to confront the latter we have to remove the former

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confusedfoam · 2 years

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Willy Stampler had a hat collection. Not featured are the several he has about how much he hates his son.

#willy posting on main and im not sorry #these are all stolen off the internet but i will be editing him some of his very own #send me willy hat requests #willy stampler #dndads #dndaddies #dungeons and daddies

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feline-evil · 2 months

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I can't think of anything that could kill a generative ai system faster than letting it pull from blogs on here, its going to be fed so many erroneous callouts and pointless discourse posts that its gonna generate a way to speedrun offing itself

#jay talkin #im making jokes but fucking hell the internet sucks nowadays #i love witnessing the rot in real time (<--said extremely mentally healthily haha u can trust)#im listening to monkey wrench on repeat. feeling normal #i mean hey yr shits already been jacked by ai if it was gonna be. sorry. it woulda happened like last year at its peak #sites being more open abt it now and adding opt out toggles dont mean its just suddenly gonna start happening #believe me they were all already trawled by little ai fucknuts already. sucks but its the truth #ai bros notably do not care abt legality they have already trawled every site. all u can do is fight back best u can #damage has been done. dont fall into despair via scaremongering and doom posting #do what u can to protect yrself and yr shit snd spread info on how to do that #glaze yr art if yr an artist. opt out of shit when u can. its fucking rough out here #ai is p solely focused on ripping off whatever is most marketable or 'realistic' bc it is a capitalist leach #and nobody involved in it has a soul enough to recognise art if it spat in their face #it fucking sucks that we're still dealing w it but i promise u this capitalist mass-market tendency #is gonna end up w it poisoning itself w its own shite imagery to the point of death so #it WILL fuck off eventually. hold on w the hope of that ok. n protect yr shit. alright #oh and dont share any info u wldnt want stolen but u shldnt be doing that anyway for internet safety reasons #love u all my artists in arms i hope ai dies sooner rather than later and i hope u get to piss on its corpse #love the lawsuit speedruns this place is pulling lately. yall hadnt had yr fill last week huh

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munarloth · 3 months

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An Incomplete List Of Platonic Soulmates, Molly Burford

#poetry #intimacy #internet poetry #instagram poetry #molly burford #i'm posting this myself bc the other post i saw of it was an unattributed and cut-off screenshot that linked to a stolen instagram post

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hairtusk · 6 months

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why am i getting pregnancy kink shit (pregnant women's stolen photos !!) on my for you tag because i occasionally look in motherhood tags, you fuckers are legitimately pure evil and i hate you !!!!

#i hope you dick shrivels up and falls off #why is EVERYTHING turned into kink shit !! oh my god !! just have normal loving sex like a normal person !!#those poor mothers who've had their videos and pictures stolen to fuel some sickos wank bank ...#the internet is an evil place i fucking hate it here

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doonarose · 8 months

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I woke up today to do some writing. Because the next fic is like a few paragraphs off being post-able. But instead, I went down an absolute rabbit hole devising a menu (I am a useless cook, I live alone, I eat toast and air-fryer cuisine) because the next, next, next fic calls for it and now here we are.

#tw food #cw food #seafood for block lists #the second intermezzo probably need to change #but when i tell you i fell off my chair when i remembered that dessert of masterchef australia like several years ago #like this is a deep deep deep cut into aussie reality tv #but it is too perfect #the only issue is this makes crowley not realizing it's a seduction actually too stupid of him #so will have to think on that #doonas rambling #pics stolen from all over the internet oops

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the-trans-dragon · 7 months

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I got an ad telling me that God doesn't want me to swear and I did not ever have an edgy atheist phase, I went Christian -> Smushed Christianity And Wicca* Together -> Wiccan* -> Life Is Clearly God Punishing Me For Something And I Dont Know How To Navigate Christianity If Im Going To Hell No Matter What -> I Will Be So Pious And Take My Damnation With Serene Grace <--> If I Am Going To Hell Then I Am Going Down While Having Fun -> I Just Realized That I Am Not Having A Good Time With Spirituality And That I Can Just Stop Being Spiritual So I Am Going To Do That.

And I am not particularly edgy about being atheist, and have no experience being so, but I am very sleepy and sleepy-me does have one thing to say, and it is

shitfuckdamnhelltittydickfuckdamn :)

#sorenhoots #i cant decide if its better or worse than the ad that looked like someone doing terrible violence. like at least gore can be brushed off.#having christianity jousted at me leaves a lingering pain in my heart like a burn that never got properly treated. Harder To Escape.#oh and *specifically like 90s/early2000s wicca bc i did not grow up with internet access and when i inevitably got internet access i was #SUPER baffled by the like Wicca Fandom Discourse online community. not to sound pretentious but all i had were old books and my heart akdjsi #so it was wicca but specifically the kind a 13 year old traumatized socially isolated void person would make. mostly involved escaping #into nature and trying to give myself therapy by imagining i had a “spirit guide” which was very much appropriating-culture of me bc i did #not have anything to go off of except reading Alister Crowley and slapping a stolen name (spirit guide) onto a very secular idea of #having an imaginary friend. which is way more into than i could have shared but i use Tumblr to ramble so :3

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mayax81 · 1 year

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look i'm as against expanding copyright law & criticizing disney's fable-camping ass as the next guy but if you trash intellectual property as a concept & advocate plagiarism, art theft, stealing others' hard work & passing it off as your own, etc., then you're just a straight up evil fucktwat. have a TERRIBLE day. <3

#plagiarism #intellectual property #copyright law #betcha think communism means sharing toothbrushes too ya buncha toddlers #sorry for having a nuanced opinion on the internet but nobody else is saying it #mypost #meanie bitchcunt hours #i want ppl to make fanart of my children when i release them into the world but i don't want them to KIDNAP said children #like??? does this need to be explained?#do i really need to say there's a difference between giving a gift and having it stolen from me?#this world has been mine since childhood--i've lived in it since i was around 8 years old #most of these characters are older than most of you #i'd at least like everyone to know who & where they came from first #it's not even cool to steal others' fanworks like come on. stealing the original should tick you off too

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kalmeria · 1 year

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i never really talked abt this bc it feels like a sensitive topic and i dont know how to properly add warnings for it but i used to have a mutual (we didnt directly talk but they would tag me in those tag x ppl posts and communicated in replies one or two times) who turned out to be impersonating other ppl online. theres evidence of them commissioning art of others ocs. also they would rb posts from the source and add someone elses tags on it (the personal kind). i remeber them somtimes and wonder if their their “personal” posts were all stolen too

#something something internet safety this was a really harsh reminder #i remember that one time they tagged me in a voice reveal thing but did explicitly say that they knew it was personal so no one should feel #pressured to do it (i didnt do it)#i think abt that. how that voice could have been stolen audio too #i constently think about the signs i ignored like i could sometimes feel there was something off about them #like how their interests very from a surprisingly wide range of things id often be like wait i didnt know you liked that piece of media too #or just generally they would conteadict themself but i waved it off as me misremembering something abt them #man. i might delete this later #someone tell me if they need stuff like this tagged and also how #anyways. i also have a dead mutual. without going into details. yea.

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inkskinned · 7 months

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nobody ever gets the mugshot of gluttony right. these days you think it has nothing to do with bodyweight. what a good trick: that gluttony could take a shape. no, there was never any fault in finishing a meal or in taking second helpings. it was always in taking from others that there was an issue - the oil baron's fingers steepled over dead bodies and stolen lands. gluttony - twin of greed, although most think greed and envy are the siblings - gluttony is pleased with the experience of gaining, is thrilled just-by-having. greed is the one that stays hungry, that has to move forever like a shark. gluttony likes it - "a glutton for punishment" is one who is seeking the harm, who loves the rush.

gluttony is a mother using her daughter's body for a diet testing ground, sharpening the bone angles. gluttony is saying why, well not! to the seventh and eighth mansion or yacht. it is not just wanting the six white horses, it is making sure that the horses came from your stables. it is not just bathing in milk - it is bathing in milk while others are starving.

oh, it's true that some sins still blaze in their bright floral prints. wrath in a white woman yelling at a person of color for even daring to be in her neighborhood. the red, incipient rage of a neck tightened at even the thought we would take the guns away. wrath has laurels, and she is good at her job, and works hard.

but sloth wasn't ever the sleepy morning of depression, the hours spent begging a clouded body to please move goddamn it; the protestant work ethic claiming even rest is somehow demonic. it was never chronic fatigue. sloth was subtle, a grey mist. she is watching you get bullied and she is deciding it is none of her business. she crosses the picket line because - what! it's just chicken, isn't it? she is closing her eyes and turning her head when the next anti-gay legislation passes. someone else will handle it. not the tense freeze of anxiety or a lack of preparation - she knows you're hurting and would rather you stay quiet about it. she tells other people i just don't see what the big deal is.

sloth is a father that doesn't do the dishes. sloth is your boyfriend's innocent shrug you're just better at household shit. sloth isn't the missed opportunity - it is the purposeful desire to just get-someone-else-to-do-it.

greed and envy are doing body shots in the back of a private jet. they are the way they always have been, but are lovers in the age of the internet. greed just finished union busting, is rolling a bitcoin over his knuckles, is about to start another MLM. envy is in a broadbrimmed hat, showing off her instagram life, grinning about how if you want it, work for it.

okay, it's true. you have a soft spot for lust, gathering dust in a corner. so tame in comparison to the others. but how funny lust is always painted as being a woman in tight clothes. you've met actually lustful women - the ones that purposefully climb into your partner's lap, the ones that say lesbians are gross but ask bisexual women into bed with their husbands. a lustful woman is not donned in lace and garters and red: that's how men think lust looks, painting their own sins into frame. this way, the sin displaces as fog and hovers above her: a woman in a dress is lust; what the man experiences is just the natural consequence.

here is the thing: lust is doing just fine, save your pity. lust is running more circles than any of them. lust is shutting down safe sexwork sites while also making teenagers in knee-high socks sex sensations. lust is CEO of an advertising network where women never pass 25 years old. all the bras lust makes are pretty to look at but, when worn, legitimately hurt. lust has a podcast, his fur coat looped around his shoulders, sells the idea that only certain people have value, that sex raises some and destroys others. lust is tilting his head and asking what did you expect when you dress like that? lust shuns you, sneers that everything you want is disgusting and taboo - right until he can figure out how to capitalize off of it. lust has the midas ability: everything he touches becomes an object.

people usually say wrath is the scary one. you agree with FMA here, though: the real dangerous one is pride, and the shit-eating grin. the white cloaks and the nationalism and the inability to apologize. it is every partner who threw a book at your head because you don't respect him. it is every mother who said my son doesn't deserve to have his life ruined over allegations. it is the teacher that fails you because you talked back.

you worry you have this one. you feel guilty when you need help but don't ask for it. prideful. ashamed when you complete something and feel good about it. too proud for your own good. but pride is not the reward of hard work or accomplishment: pride is a twitter feed. it is the thing that has to mask i didn't do anything with look at me.

pride is your father's raised hand, his raised voice. how he was never there when you needed him, but he is still "head of house." he ruins dinner and blames it on you: you're an embarrassment to this family. this is the glass you walk around, the cuts in your feet. how he says this isn't how i raised you and you have to bite back the retort: that's because you didn't actually fucking raise me.

#i personally think having any of these desires is totally fine. it's when u use them to hurt others #it's why having ambitions =/= greed: as long as ur ambition isn't ''i hope i can take someone elses good things''#writeblr #warm up #seven deadly sins

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pumpkingeorge · 1 year

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People at work always ask me for jokes. Every day someone comes up to me or they all come over at the same time for a daily joke. They only ever laugh at the dirty ones and I'm afraid I'm almost out!

Usually it is my managers and just saying something funny puts them in a better mood for a little while and takes the heat off of the rest of us, so I need new material.

#i might have to start writing jokes down #just so I don't forget or mess it up #unfortunately i am not funny so i have to steal jokes off the internet #just me casually strolling up into work with a joke book tucked away in my pocket #full of stolen jokes made by other people

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teaboot · 1 month

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Yo, no hate, I totally get the confusion!

From the perspective of someone who isn't in the arts, this would seem pretty dumb, yeah? Offering someone money for work they already did, on a picture I already have access to, thay I could just ask someone to do on me for free, right?

Well, there are a few reasons:

As an artist myself, I know how hard it is to make a career out of art. Nobody wants to hire you, those who DO don't want to pay you, and it's so, so easy to have your ideas ripped off or stolen. I believe that by giving money to artists I appreciate, I can help them continue to exist and continue creating more.

I'm benefiting from their work. I love their art, and I want it on my body, and they put work into creating it, so shouldn't I compensate them? It'd be kind of unfair for them to put blood sweat and tears into a piece on for me to walk in and go, "mine now", right? If I hired the tattoo artist to design something for me, it would cost money. So why is it fair to rob the tattoo artist AND the original artist so I can save a buck? I've just cheated two different professionals.

By asking the original artist if it's okay to get their work, and if they'd like to charge for it, I'm giving them control over their own creations. Maybe it's a personal piece. Maybe it was a commission for someone else who doesn't want matching tattoos with an internet stranger. I'm letting them choose to say what happens to the art that they've made, and in an era of the internet and pinterest and AI theft, that's not something we all get to have anymore.

TL/DR: Asking permission and offering payment is a gesture of appreciation and respect that grants an artist the dignity and bargaining power they need to survive in an increasingly hostile environment.

Or,

Failing to adequately compensate individual artists and craftsmen for their labour has directly to the death of art and craft at large.

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hbbisenieks · 9 months

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ok, i've gotta branch off the current ai disc horse a little bit because i saw this trash-fire of a comment in the reblogs of that one post that's going around

[reblog by user makiruz (i don't feel bad for putting this asshole on blast) that reads "So here's the thing: every Diane Duane book that I have is stolen, I downloaded it illegally from the Internet; and I am not sorry, I am a thief of books and I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, ideas are not property, they should be free to be used by anyone as they were before the invention of capitalism; for that reason I don't believe it's wrong to use books to train AI models"]

this is asshole behavior. if you do this and if you believe this, you are a Bad Person full stop.

"Capitalism" as an idea is more recent than commerce, and i am So Goddamn Tired of chuds using the language of leftism to justify their shitty behavior. and that's what this is.

like, we live in a society tm

if you like books but you don't have the means to pay for them, the library exists! libraries support authors! you know what doesn't support authors? stealing their books! because if those books don't sell, then you won't get more books from that author and/or the existing books will go out of print! because we live under capitalism.

and like, even leaving aside the capitalism thing, how much of a fucking piece of literal shit do you have to be to believe that you deserve art, that you deserve someone else's labor, but that they don't deserve to be able to live? to feed and clothe themselves? sure, ok, ideas aren't property, and you can't copyright an idea, but you absolutely can copyright the Specific Execution of an idea.

so makiruz, if you're reading this, or if you think like this user does, i hope you shit yourself during a job interview. like explosively. i hope you step on a lego when you get up to pee in the middle of the night. i hope you never get to read another book in your whole miserable goddamn life until you disabuse yourself of the idea that artists are "idea landlords" or whatever the fuck other cancerous ideas you've convinced yourself are true to justify your abhorrent behavior.

#so-called artificial intelligence #llms #piracy #seriously step on a lego and shit yourself

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