I honestly think that in the Internet age no one should claim ownership of a particular cultural phenomenon. Cultural identity in the world is the weakest it has ever been, and as we homogenize our upbringings more and more through digital means, culture and ethnicity will matter less and less.

The Internet is 20 years old. Calm down lol.

Also does humanity win when cultural tradition, cultural _information_ is lost forever? Are we sure we are capturing all that is useful?

Is it really inevitable or could we _choose_ to assign more value to the preservation of extant culture?