Not necessarily when it comes down to franchise characters that exist and have existed prior to their films. That's a completely different ballpark than original, on-screen characters such as Indiana Jones or John McClane. Batman Begins, for example is not a remake of Batman. Other than having the same character, and being movie #1 of a franchise, there aren't enough similarities for the former to be considered a remake of the latter. When it comes down to plot, both were polar opposites, and existed in completely different types of atmospheres, had different themes, etc.
The same thing can happen to this new RoboCop film. Granted, it's up in the air whether this will be a direct remake (similarities in or almost carbon copies of plot, characters, themes, etc), "reimagining" type of remake (ala Rob Zombie's Halloween), or the "reboot." If this new movie ends up being a reboot, it is not copying someone's hard work, because the plot will be different, there will be tweaks with the character achetypes, etc. Now, granted, if this film decides to portray Murphy's humanity (which makes RoboCop such a unique character in the original), then it still won't be a carbon copy because that is apart of the mythos of the character. It won't be a copy or "stolen" unless everything basically stayed the same with a few tweaks. Of course, nothing could ever be "stolen" anyway, because the studio owns the rights and they can do what they damn well please with it.