There's a difference between owning ideas or information and owning something novel that was entirely of your own creation. Art and media have a couple differen

There's a difference between owning ideas or information and owning something novel that was entirely of your own creation. Art and media have a couple different forms of significance, which our original copyright system addressed well. This has been distorted over the years by greedy companies. 1. Economic significance - Art takes effort to create, and people are willing to pay money for it. 2. Cultural significance - Art moves a culture in unforeseen ways, so its cultural legacy should be available for all. Copyright should provide a limited period of time where the artist / creator can benefit from #1. But eventually #2 should take over, and we've delayed that transition long past the point of cultural relevance. Now by the time copyrighted works expire into the public domain, they are so dated that nobody wants them anyway. IMO copyright should last for the life of the creator or 25 years from the initial publication date of the work, whichever is longer. In the case where a company claims copyright on a work, the term should be 25 years. In the case where a creator assigns copyright to another person or company, copyright will revert to 25 years from initial publication. In the case of long-lived iconic brands such as Star Wars or Mickey Mouse, trademark laws can be expanded slightly to avoid confusion in the market. Intellectual property has real value, and we shouldn't throw it away because we don't agree with the business models around it. But we also shouldn't lock all of our cultural artifacts behind a paywall: they need to be released into the public domain while they are still relevant.