If you paint a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog in your living room, you are technically creating an unauthorized derivative work—but in practice, no one cares. Private, noncommercial creation has always lived in a space where copyright law exists on paper but is rarely enforced.

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, tech was a foundational part of my childhood.

For most of history, humanity’s greatest accomplishment has been its ability to out-accelerate its own existential problems.