And I agree. All art is copied to begin with, it just depends on how much of yourself you put into your version. If it's a lot, then it will appear quite original.
The power imbalance in creative copyright is real.
Everything I've read about artists I respect seems to involve them falling in love with another artists work and aping it when they are young.
Even once they get famous, I find originality has more to do with where they get their inspiration than what they put into it themselves.
I love tracing the roots of the things I love. It's endlessly rewarding. And now I'm going to watch this anime.
One of my favourite words is "scenius", the genius of a collective artistic scene. This necessarily implies 'copying' and mutual inspiration.
And I think the same applies to software. I'm generally more excited about something that is the next step in an evolution, than something that pretends it's entirely new.
> I find originality has more to do with where they get their inspiration than what they put into it themselves.
I'm not sure I understand how you're separating a person's inspiration from who they are. If I'm inspired by something, it's because it talks to me as a person. If the person then creates something, how have I not put the inspiration (myself) into it. They are one and the same to me.
But if someone takes random musical thing that's been happening for centuries in a folk tradition or something that weird Avant guard artists are doing and turns it into pop culture, that'll often be seen as 'original' in the first sense as it is new to most viewers when it's not original in the second sense.
"Rapper's Delight" by Sugarhill Gang is a good example, it's both original (first hip hop record success) and totally ripped off at the same time, while also being really good.