To me it's the blatant regard and respect for intellectual property rights, as if they were some God-blessed rights.

And this on a forum called "_hacker_ news". What happened to "Information wants to be free"?

We're not talking about stealing some artist's latest album or pirating some fresh program. This is unmonetizable core CS lore 40 years old.

Anything after 20 years or so should get into the public domain.