What is being stolen?
If I see something and write it down on my piece of paper, what have I taken from you? You still have your piece of paper with your peanut drawing.
Are you claiming ownership on the specific arrangement of graphite on a piece of paper?
Claiming ownership of ideas is ridiculous. You can claim to be the person who came up with an idea, but not the idea itself. Well unless you use the force of the state to make it so
Charles Schultz has a large vested interest in keeping the integrity of the Peanuts universe; with it he makes books, movies, merchandise, ect.
If I start producing a Peanuts comic and I portray Charlie Brown as a meth head that starts kicking Snoopy and pimping out Lucy, it will degrade the intellectual property that he has built and will cost him in lost revenue from missing ticket sales on movies, lower book sales, ect.
Just because I can easily do this does not make it right (it will cause monetary harm to Mr. Schultz), it also does not negate Peanuts being an intellectual property.
