>But if I cooy verbatim hokusai ocean waves, it's mehhhhhhhh >I'm a ripoff loser and should be punished for doing it

You are totally free to copy that painting in whatever way you want. There is literally zero intellectual property attached to it. This isn't a hypothetical, it is the law right now. Nobody can stop you painting a replica and selling it, as long as you disclose that it is a replica. It is in the public domain and there will be no punishment.

Of course

But I've never said you can't, I've said it's lame and you should be punished for doing it, punished meaning people will totally not attach any meaningful value to it, because it's a stupid replica

Value in art is not given by the content (and usually not the idea), but by the author's intent

The fact that you can legally copy something that is in public domain doesn't take away authors' rights to decide what you can and cannot do with their creation

The problem here is that corporations want to copy creations of authors that are still alive and never granted them rights to replicate them ad libitum, for free.