Intellectual Property or Intellectual Provenance?
The backstory of Breakout, from Wikipedia:
Breakout is a 1976 action video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. The game was designed by Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow and prototyped via discrete logic chips by Steve Wozniak with assistance from Steve Jobs.[...]
The concept was predated by Ramtek's Clean Sweep (1974), but the game's designers were influenced by Atari's own Pong (1972).
[...]
Atari was involved in the copyright lawsuit Atari Games Corp. v. Oman over its ability to register copyright protection for Breakout, ultimately prevailing in establishing that the game is copyrightable as an audiovisual work. The game spawned an entire genre of clone games. Breakout inspired Taito's Arkanoid (1986), which itself led to many imitators. It also influenced the game design of Taito's arcade shooter Space Invaders (1978).
Built on Pong. Beaten to market by Clean Sweep. Then off to court to prove it was an original work.
In an era of slop canons and hobbyist vibe coders, I don't see how the current concept of Intellectual Property sustains. Roblox fast follows are just the latest proof.
The more pertinent question might be how we embrace the intellectual provenance of a creative work.
How do we embed it, track it, recognise it?
And make sure credit lands where it's due. And only where it's due.