My thoughts on some things

I personally find IP law to be stupid myself. Ideas are not property, only the results of them are. Copyright and trademark are supposed to be there so people do not plagiarize your work and pass it off as their own. Same for patent law. But I don’t think that should prevent fan works, or for that matter non-profit file sharing. Setting, plot, and characters are ideas, and should be open to all. So long as the product of the use of those ideas isn’t a scene-for-scene/note-for-note remake, unchanged, of an episode, song, or book, being sold under that person’s name with no credit to the original being given, then I see no issue. For my own writing and songs, I don’t care what anyone does with them so long as I’m given a credit and profit isn’t being made. Spread my stuff around. Take my concepts and make them your own. Whatever. Just mention that you were inspired by me and don’t make money off of it. And if you do plan to make money off of it, I’m more than willing to do a profit sharing idea that’s strongly in your favor. Like a 70-30 split in your favor.

Remember that for thousands of years, we used to pass stories down generation to generation, the characters and basic plot elements remaining the same but with only changes in style and minor points of taste between individual tellers. Even Shakespeare ripped off older plays, myths, legends, and history. The idea of the story as an individual entity with its own self-sovereignty is a completely modern, profit-driven idea that’s alien to the art form itself.