[ljlolel]

I can make cheap, small-scale facsimiles, fangzhipin, to demonstrate some quality of the original. I can make exact replicas, pixel-perfect fuzhipin, to learn how the originals and their creators work. Or I can create shanzhai, unsolicited redesigns, commenting and riffing on the work of others. All these copies have an important role to play in the process of design.

Whether you believe that it’s worthwhile or worthless to copy, whether you think that copies are a valuable part of the design community or a scourge, you are using software, hardware, websites and apps that all owe their existence to copying.

As long as there is design, there will be copying.

[fsckboy]

As long as there are new ideas, those without such ideas will copy them

[CognitiveLens]

But that take is too narrow - many of the 'great' painters had extensive training in the work of previous masters, frequently copying their works repeatedly in order to develop technique and more deeply engage with what came before. After developing that base skill and understanding, they had a better toolset to express their own originality.

[JoshTriplett]

As long as there are ideas, there will be people who claim their "new ideas" have absolutely nothing in them derived from any previous ideas. Such people then scorn others who do not help them maintain the same fiction, and who instead dare to acknowledge that everything builds on what came before.

[unraveller]

How dare you imply the origins of my inspiration are not mysterious. Now what am I going to tell the interviewer when they ask "where did you get the inspiration for that?" they always like my non-answers.

[burnished]

I see that you've copied every word you used here, not very original of you