Not viruses as such, at least according to the inventor of the term, rather they are already part of our inheritable structure, our DNA (so to speak) seeking new ways to be inherited.

We are our memes.

Thank you.

Pretty sure Gaza doesn’t need the Green party declaring genocide on them, they’re already dealing with one.

I’m telling you this as someone that works in the arts, that’s just not true.

You can pirate digital material and repackage it. I see illustrators getting their designs ripped off by large scale clothing manufacturers all the time.

Similarly, I know some acts that have heard their music on adverts and films and haven’t been paid. It seems like it is being stolen if you ask me.

There needs to be protection or the creation of art becomes a luxury for those that can afford to not make money from it.

What’s wild here is that when you talk about IP you are talking about entertainment and art and not lifesaving drugs and technologies on a global scale.

It’s a very privilidged western view of copyright and IP.

And as I said in my comment, it isn’t my customers that want stuff for free, often they want to pay to support me. Those laws stop big multinational corporations from taking my work and selling it on their t-shirts.

We are social creatures, but fuck me, we need to eat and pay rent.

I see you make art. What if I said to you, I’d like to give you some money for that art, for maybe a print of it. Not just so that I can own some but because I want to support you.

And then someone just copies your art and gives it to me free. You get no money for it.

Are you genuinely OK with that? Are you saying that everything you make is copyright free?

So you think that because some people chose to make things for free there should be no legal protection for people that want to sell what they make?

The only people who can choose to make things for free are the privilidged few.

As someone who makes minimum wage from my intellectual property, the IP laws (in the UK) have allowed me to prevent the very wealthy just taking my ideas and profiting from them.

And they have tried repeatedly.

It isn’t the law, but the corruption of the law that’s at issue. However, without that legal framework there would be no financial incentive for anyone but the wealthy to make IP.

Is that what you want? Entertainment by big corporations only, and art made solely by the upper middle classes?

I like following verbal meme trends, then watching them die out.

Couple of years ago everyone described nearly everything as “spicy”.

The overuse if “hear me out” before making a mid statement.

That dark period of time when people used “amazeballs”.

Yeah, some folks don’t get sarcasm, huh?

Will people please stop using lazy as a synonym for bad writing?

There are so many reasons why someone might be bad at writing and many of them are far from “lazy”.

If there’s in thing about us lazy folk, it is being able to write as concisely as possible to conserve energy.

Not only is the use of “lazy” rude it is uninformed.

And will people please stop using “uninformed” as a synonym for people who aren’t very smart.

There are so many reasons why…

You know we use pounds as a weight measurement too, right?

Some countries use imperial measurements, others metric, but the UK enjoys both.