Well honestly if it wasn't for Duke Bush leaking the family's secret baked bean recipe we would all be suffering in terms of culinary knowledge!
In all seriousness though cultures all over the world have different ways of viewing aesthetic not only in their artwork but in their music literature etc.. At the same time most cultures have specific things that they take serious ownership in, some call these parts of their culture holy or sacred and so forth. These things I think should be preserved for the peoples who hold them that way. That being said what happens when someone doesn't know that some melody, story, symbol, etc. is sacred or what if the culture has a shift in what they view as sacred? I know in my heritage many of the symbols and imagery that was once viewed as sacred by my ancestors has been highly commercialized mostly because of tourism. I didn't grow up thinking that these things were sacred in any way I just knew that they were part of my heritage and were special. I thought that that was cool. Well now I know that my ancestors were pretty serious about those patterns, symbols and so on. I admit that when I see the imagery associated with my heritage I kinda laugh to myself a little and think "they don't know what that means" but I am not upset about it. Many people's heritage is preserved through other cultures that absorb the symbolism and ideas that they admire. There's a lot of gray area.
Great topic Pres