[fistfucker3000]

Because even if your name is on it, the idea that “you” made it is not really true. Someone made materials for you, somebody taught you the skills needed to make the thing. There was a whole functioning society that allowed the work to be made in the first place. The society was also the thing that enforced the property rights for some arbitrary length of time. At some point, the society that helped create the work should share in the spoils.

[dahart]

Fine, so tax it. This doesn’t amount to a pro-argument that someone else should be able to divert my income stream and my creative work for their own private gain.

[kapuasuite]

There’s no counter-argument to make beyond my self-interest in consuming creative works at very low cost and with very few limitations outweighing your self-interest in profiting from your works.

[dahart]

There is a counter argument to make, and that’s not it. If getting free stuff were the primary argument in favor of shorter copyright, our court system would have extended copyrights forever already.

[kapuasuite]

Congress is the one that’s dramatically extended copyright length, not the courts.

[dahart]

Sure, fine. I stand corrected and remain unsatisfied by still not hearing any clear or compelling reasons to shorten copyrights. Congress isn’t extending copyrights on their own, their doing it because they’ve been asked to by businesses like Disney. The length hasn’t been extended “dramatically”, any time recently. No more dramatically than in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...

[kapuasuite]

The only compelling reason is to give broader and cheaper access to past works. If you don’t find that compelling then I don’t know what to tell you. What’s the compelling argument for them to exist as is?

The big extensions came in the mid-70s and late 90s, well within living memory. According to your own link they nearly doubled the average duration and pushed it over 100 years.