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Ask yourself why you feel that way, though. If I pixel-by-pixel copy discrete ideas from 20 different sites to build my own, that seems different, legit. Zero new code by me, I just stitched it together.

As we reduce 20, somehow that legitimacy erodes and at 1 it's "disrespectful". Where along that line was it wrong?

The "problem" we perceive is not stealing, it's stealing from only 1 place.

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The sorites paradox says that removing a grain of sand from a heap doesn't stop it from being a heap, and yet we can do that until we are left with a single grain of sand which is clearly not a heap.

Likewise, taking elements from many influences and combining them involves a lot of creative choices about which pieces to take from which influence while copying one thing exactly involves no creative choices and is just reusing someone else's effort. It's the difference between baking someone a cake or getting one from the store.

Clearly the act of combining various elements into a coherent whole is the added value here. Like musicians which take various samples and sounds and combine them into something novel and harmonic

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