Again, you are off base. It’s much more complicated than that. Hundreds of tomes have been written on the subject. It’s been argued over in this country in the modern context continuously for over 60 years.
The gist of it is this: Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain. You should be able to make derivative works of Mickey Mouse because the copyright had expired. Instead, the cultural history of this country is firewalled behind the lobbying strength of the Disney Co. It’s not just Mickey Mouse, but almost every work of copyrighted art in the last 70+ years. The artistic/cultural history of our country is being removed from public display and thrown into vaults to never be seen/heard/read again.
The copyright and patent system was specifically crafted by our Founding Fathers to prevent this, the entrenched media interests in this country have fully subverted the people’s will, natural born rights, and the Constitutional provisions of this country’s founding.
I’m not a well versed defender of this position, you’ll have to search further if you want to better understand the situation.
I understand the position, I just don’t agree with it.
What other property “expires” it’s title? It’s tantamount to saying that your house and land should “expire” as your property, and that you only have use of it for a few years after which your neighbors can just rustle around in your garage whenever they wish. Copyright is property. A trademark is property.
I will submit that patents ARE different. A patent isn’t property. It’s a privilege of monopoly, a granted monopoly that the state agrees to enforce, and it can and should expire after some amount of time.