Copyright was intended to be a tool for incentivizing creatives before rightly placing their work in the public domain, where it’s subject to all of the same dynamics of other free speech and expression.
After all, creative works are built on the backs of previous works spanning all the way back to beginning of time. Those ideas came free to the creator, and so their work too should be offered freely.
However, major corporate interests have slowly eroded copyright law to the point that some copyrights can last 150 years!
You can see the impact of this change in the thorough stagnation in our culture. Since they can rely on a stable of known intellectual property, publishers, producers, and movie makers take fewer chances on new creators. Instead, they churn out increasingly worse sequels, remixes, and retellings.
Creators are also robbed of the culture that created them. Not only has the industry become hostile to new creators, but copyright term has also prevented these creators from drawing inspiration and references from the last 100+ years of creative work, unless they have a few hundred thousand dollars to spend on the privilege.
Lastly, and most importantly, average citizens have paid the highest price. The founders understood that copyright was tantamount to theft, an infringement on the first amendment, and an impediment to the spread of good ideas. It’s a monopoly, plain and simple, that holds your heroes, legends, and inspiration hostage until long after your dead.
To make matters worse, the vast majority of copyrighted work makes all the money they will ever make within the first 5 years of their release. Everything beyond that is designed to protect outliers like Mickey Mouse, Superman, and I Love Lucy. But 80% of the world population has grown up with Mickey and Minny. What right does Disney Corp have to what you do with a lifetime of ideas?
Return copyright to its original 14 year term. Return our first amendment rights to what the founders intended.