> That's the legal construct that underpins the oligopoly, though. The durations of copyright protection in the US are too long and that's probably the fault o

> That's the legal construct that underpins the oligopoly, though. The durations of copyright protection in the US are too long and that's probably the fault of big corporations, predominantly Disney. The goal of the copyright policy should be to balance incentivizing creativity (by providing rights and protections) and having a rich public domain. And every time we extend copyright duration, we starve the public domain and we should stop doing that. But copyright as a construct is very democratic. If anyone creates anything original that can be reduced to a medium, they have rights over that thing for as long as they live (and then some). Those rights include the ability to sell it to others, including big corporations, I guess, but the rights begin with the creators, and that's very democratic.