[barnabee]

> why should an artist be required to make their creations free for anyone to use after a certain period of time?

If it’s digital it’s free by default, even protected IP that isn’t digital is often cheap to copy or substantially replicate

So a better question is, why should people be prevented from making copies of things they like at their own expense forever?

The rights we give creators over their creations are not fundamental rights, they’re legal rights given because society decides the positives (incentivising creation, enabling creation to be an industry) outweigh the negatives (artificially restricting the flow of information, reducing and gatekeeping access to valuable art and knowledge, etc.).

There’s no particular reason to believe that the optimal solution here is either a complete lack of “IP” protection or giving creators absolute control and exclusivity in perpetuity.

It’s almost certainly neither, but IMO it’s quite clearly much less protection than creators currently enjoy.