I think there's a moral argument that people are entitled to engage in their own culture as they see fit. We accept some limits on this right so that creative

I think there's a moral argument that people are entitled to engage in their own culture as they see fit. We accept some limits on this right so that creative people can earn a living, but fundamentally, people have a right to the stories and images that shape their lives and the lives of people around them. If the works of Shakespeare were still under copyright and still controlled by some distant descendants, and those people decided to disallow any new adaptations or printings of his work, it wouldn't just be unfortunate; it would be unjust. The works of Shakespeare now make up a part of our shared human experience, part of our understanding of the human condition, part of our lens for viewing the world. The were created by one person, but now they have been merged into the common culture it is unjust and undesirable for them to be controlled by any one person.