Not a big fan of the concept of "intellectual property." The site itself is kind of fun.
But this is not the case here. These are unique artistic expressions. True they are simple, but it is impossible to imagine someone creating the same thing without knowing the original. There is practically an unlimited number of ways one can convey a logo. Protecting the rights of one logo does not meaningfully limit the rights of others (if you ignore the "right" to get artistic work done for free).
In these cases we should allow the artist to have a right to their creation.
In most cases on the site the copies are undeniably in bad taste. But not something to be protected by law, in my opinion.
Btw I am not entirely sure if the original artist is pressing charges against the copies, but by law, you should have an option to.
I support you in the fight against patent trolls, but this is just out right theft :/
Btw, since we are discussing copyrights as a whole, this reminds me of the oatmeal incident. Other sites just picking up his comics and using them to get traffic (and thus diverting traffic what would have been potentially his) is completely wrong. It is depriving him of his hard earned money via those visitors. Now shouldn't the Law help him get what is rightfully his?
I think i understand where you are coming from, these things should never hinder creative process. And you are right. But copyrights exist fundamentally to guard against plagiarism. Not to say "i thought of this first! you can't think of it now!", but yes, sadly in recent times IP has come to that...
The same is true for a car, an iPhone or a piece of land.
Any ownership is not "ontological" or natural, it's just as "legal fiction" as intellectual property. Humanity has the custom that a person can have a claim on an item or a piece of land, and that's it.
It might be legitimate (or not), but that's another issue -- it still is "legal fiction", that is, there is no "natural law" that justifies people owning a piece of land or anything else for that matter.
It's just something we, as society accept as valid (and not even all societies: there are tribal societies where land belongs to all, for example, or societies where land belongs to the crown).
In the same sense, ownership of concepts is something that a society can accept as valid (or not). In any case, our society seems to accept the notion just fine, seeing that copying some kind of concepts without permission can land you a hefty fine.
Additionally, many industries are IP-free, and are doing excellent nonetheless: recipes and fashion come to mind.