AI Didn't Break Copyright Law, It Just Exposed How Broken It Already Was

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. Gift it to a friend? Still functionally tolerated—a technical act of distribution that copyright law mostly ignores at…