[cyphar]

Because:

a) Almost all artists sign deals with publishers to "get their foot in the door" which end up giving all of the rights to the publisher, and so the artist ends up being a "wage slave" because they don't profit off the rights of the work they made.

b) Locking away works for entire generations means that cultural artistic development is stifled. Shakespeare's works were based on previous works and stories, and under the copyright system of today he would have been sued for his plays (and we probably wouldn't have them today). It is insanely short-sighted for corporations to lobby for longer copyright terms to have monopolies, at the expense of eradicating future generations' Shakespeares.

c) The original purpose of copyright (under the Statute of Anne in 1710) was to provide a very limited monopoly by the authors (not publishers) so that they are incentivised to create new works. By your own admission, having lifetime copyright protections does not incentivise the creation of new works (you could argue that it actually is a counter-incentive if you wrote one work that became very popular early in your career). A return to that system would be a significant improvement.

[hfdgiutdryg]

a) not relevant, particularly in 2018 when self-publishing is becoming increasingly common.

b) I specifically said my lifetime. An average work might be covered for two generations. Not a big deal. If Shakespeare's work is so derivative, then I don't have a problem. 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fan-fiction. You can be derivative without being a mashup.

c) you're talking about publishers again, as if that's relevant.

As for this:

By your own admission, having lifetime copyright protections does not incentivise the creation of new works

I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth to form a low-quality argument. At no point did I ever say or imply anything of the sort!

[cyphar]

Self-publishing is ridiculously uncommon, and it's just silly to argue that the small amount of large works that succeeded through self-publishing somehow diminishes the immense power and size of large publishing houses (for movies and books -- there is more self-published music these days). I can't even think of a recent example of a popular book or movie that was self-published ('The Martian' was written in public independently but the books were obviously printed by a single publisher).

> I specifically said my lifetime. An average work might be covered for two generations. Not a big deal.

The average lifetime is more like 5-6 generations (each generation being maybe 15 years). I disagree it isn't a big deal, and I also very much disagree that it's fine if Shakespeare didn't exist because his works were derivative.

> 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fan-fiction.

The work '50 Shades of Gray' has absolutely nothing in common with 'Twilight', despite it's history. Not to mention that the author probably got permission of some sort. Shakespeare's plays were far more significant mash-ups of previous stories and works (with changes obviously, but nowhere near as many changes as the two works you mentioned).

> At no point did I ever say or imply anything of the sort!

Yes you did. From your original comment:

> If I create original work, I want to profit off it for my life.

If you have a guaranteed profit source for the rest of your life, what reasonable person would ever find a need to make more works (there's no point in getting more money if you already have whatever you need)? The point of copyright is to incentivise the creation of new works -- which is the precise reason why it is limited in every country on Earth (and was even more limited in the Statute of Anne). Having a limit to any reasonable person is equivalent to unlimited (since once your dead, there's no profit motive any more) has the same effect of removing the incentive for more works.

If you don't believe that the purpose of copyright is to incentise new works, read the US constitution (I imagine you're in the US) or whatever copyright law is applicable in your country.

> [Congress has the Right] 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.