Why do Americans always rip off shows that already exsist

It's because Hollywood and American Television is by and large the biggest when it comes to tv product.

Standard Opinion below:
The Inbetweeners - original far better
Wilfred - original is fairly equal to the copy cat
Rake - I personally have enjoyed USA version more so far.
Shameless - I haven't watched the original, but I have heard both are great.
Office - both were great in their own right. I hated both.

why don't countries rip off America? Because they would rather just play the american version in your country. Cheaper that way.

Unless you are Bollywood:
USA - 24 Bollywood - using same series in india now.
I guess there is also:
USA - Mad Men ... British: British Mad Men

So yeah, copying goes both ways, but typically it's cheaper for other countries to just air the USA version and those countries don't have the resources Americans do to just "copy" the show w/ new actors.. Sometimes same actors: Like Wilfred.

Did you not notice that the producer of the US version was the actor who plays the main character in the Australian version? Sounds like he was trying to make more money off of it.

Because we SUCK & like to ruin EVERYTHING we possibly can. Because Americans are too lazy to watch things ALREADY in English, just because it's harder to get a hold of or because they are too stupid to understand people with accents/it takes too much energy to. Honestly, it's one of the top 10 reasons I hate being from here & why I understand why everyone hates us so much. They've got good reason. Honestly, I think doing this should be illegal, but no, this is fine, while sharing files is not (very very wrong). The thing that pisses me off most, is that almost every single person who watches these horrible atrocities has no idea it's even a rip off & they love the show & then are confused when they find the page on facebook or here or something for the REAL version & they bitch about it because they're stupid. They have no idea how good the REAL version is & they probably never bother to see it. The problem is that "The Office" was such a success, the studios/producers/whoever think this will happen every time they rip off a show that's British or Australian and they Americanize the crap out of it. Wilfred is honestly the only real exception, and I think the only reason is because they actually used the same guy who plays Wilfred in the original version, and because the original is fairly poor quality visually. The Office was only OK because Steve Carrel is very funny, and Rainn Wilson added a bit of humor, but otherwise, I'd take Ricky Gervais & the original The Office any day over our Americanized garbage. It's all got to do with making money, they assume it will succeed because it succeeded in the original country it was aired/made in, that it will succeed here, regardless of what they change, no care is taken to preserve anything that made it good in the first place, no mind to the fact that actors make up a huge part of what makes a good show, not to mention the WRITERS. It's not just the idea or the story. Most of our television these days is absolute garbage, to be honest, with an exception for HBO & a few good shows on other channels, which were surprising & I think just luck that someone decided to air it, since all people want anymore is garbage anyways here. I can only keep apologizing for what we do to these shows...Shameless was great, we RUINED it, I don't care if it has awesome William H. Macy, it blows, and Skins was great too, but we just COMPLETELY destroyed everything good about it, etc etc etc, Rake is no damn exception. I almost didn't bother watching Wilfred when I found out it was another damned americanized show from somewhere else, but a friend said it actually wasn't too bad considering that. I can only hope against hope that they don't do this to my MOST favorite British shows, like Green Wing, Black Books, Peep Show, and quite a lot of others. THAT would be truly infuriating.

~~~"Teach a man to reason, and he'll think for a lifetime"~~~

It's a Hollywood thing.

america makes me sad.

It's not the Americans, it's the greedy creators of said "original shows" who see $$ in selling out their original product to be OEM'ed to an American audience regardless if it's done right or even with the same level of dedication as the original.

And let's be clear here, it goes both ways where Commonwealth and UK entertainment companies buy rights and adapt American born movies and stories, and try to make them their own, often falling flat for the most part.

Well, the 'making them worse' part is subjective (though I largely agree), but, when 'Being Human' was being adapted from the English-speaking version for the American-speaking audience (despite being filmed in Quebec), I read the reason we don't just show the originals, was that the originals are shot without breaks for commercials, whereas we MUST have commercials.

Carpe Noctem!