But the thing is, you can. You can reproduce it verbatim and you can call it your own. That's "stealing" of a different nature.

If he's full-on rejecting copyright then I can (with his blessing) take his entire body of work, s/zenhabits/choult/ and profit.

I'm not sure that the author counters/confronts that concept enough for me to accept that that is something he would acquiesce to.