No disagreement with me there, the copyright laws are a disaster and have long lost their way from the 'means' to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Ar

No disagreement with me there, the copyright laws are a disaster and have long lost their way from the 'means' to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The purpose is to incentivize creative works for the public benefit with the limited time exclusive rights, not retroactively extend copyright years after the death of the author to enrich their rights-holders in perpetuity every time expiration comes up. As it is, you can't even make something public domain yourself - the best you can do is add a permissive license since all rights are reserved by default without registration. But this is getting somewhat off topic.