I’m sorry if I come across like a pedantic ass (e; and I’m sorry I got a little tilted with my last comment), but I think this is a really important distinction and each of these things needs separate rules to build the kind of society we want to live in.
It was labor when it was written and performed, and that labor should be respected and fairly compensated, but once we cross the threshold from writing and performance to recordings of those performances and copies of writings we’re talking about intellectual property. I don’t think you should be able to make commercial use of other people’s intellectual property without their permission, but I think that’s a civil lawsuit type of problem not a crime (whereas stealing someone’s labor, whether through wage theft or through actual chattel slavery, should be considered a crime, imo). If we don’t keep those distinctions clear, corps like Disney and EA are going to use protections we have (or should have) for people’s labor to attack anyone they can claim are messing with their brands.
I’ve got a lot of respect for Carlin and think this project was a bad idea in bad taste and the wishes of his family members ought to be respected, but I don’t want to see an emotional outrage tip us into making dumb laws.