“No, they’re not “free”...”
They certainly are. You can choose to deny that they are free, but millions of people who obtain those products for free aren’t in any mood to join you in that fantasy.
“... and the creators of these products (yes, they are products) will cease to produce them.”
Perhaps.
“They will not be forced to produce without compensation.”
Nobody is forcing them.
“If you can’t be stopped from stealing, then the supply will be cut off.”
That is one possibility, but I don’t think it’s the most likely. I think it’s much more likely that people will adapt to the new reality and find other ways to make money while still producing what they are good at producing.
“You go on ahead and work for free. Such an altruist you are.”
And you can keep trying to make things personal instead of having a logical discussion about the issues, but it’s not going to get you very far.
Project Gutenberg spends a lot of time and effort attempting to track down if a particular work published, say, in 1930 has finally lapsed copyright. It is sometimes extremely difficult to determine because it is sometimes tricky simply determining who a particular author actually was, not to mention whether he/she has passed, and if so, when they did so. There is often no way to know, so they have to wait the longest length of time from the publication date before they can even bother to scan a work for publication.
Then you have the problems of large corporations buying off enough legislooters to extend the copyright yet again, so that you end up with a situation where:
In countries with (somewhat) more sane copyright law, like Australia, you can already download most of the works of George Orwell because they've already entered the Public Domain there. I doubt you'll ever be able to legally do so in the allegedly free United States.
Then you have corporations like Disney, that made a lot of their initial fortunes by digging deep into the public domain for their early works, yet seem to be absolutely terrified of the concept of Steamboat Willie ever reaching the same status. Should we really have to hunt down the descendants of William Shakespeare if we'd like to make use of material from The Merchant of Venice, or Romeo and Juliet so we can pay them royalties for the right to do so? If not, what are the logical limits of how long works should be held hostage to posterity by descendants of their creators? I recall seeing a quote from some movie exec who claimed that "eternity minus one day" would satisfy the "limited times" specified in Article 1, § 8 of the Constitution.
I read a lot, but refuse to buy any copy-protected ebook, not because I want to give it away to all comers, but because I want to be able ton control when and where I read it. On occasion, I'll run out of reading material I've purchased, and I have a directory on my reader that contains about 1000 e-books that I downloaded from Project Gutenberg. Are the distant relatives of Johann Arndt somehow being ripped off because I was able to download his work of apologetics "True Christianity" over 300 years after he wrote it? Surely someone at Disney or RIAA would argue that I am committing some wrong.
The bottom line for all of this is that the law has become a ridiculous over-reaching and abusive barrier to the free flow of information. So much so, that it weakens any remaining respect for that law. As far as I'm concerned I have no respect at all for any work over 30 years of age. If a friend wants a copy of Dark Side of the Moon, after first being amazed they didn't already have a copy, I'll gladly provide it. THis is an inevitable consequence of their twisting of the law to suit the needs of immortal corporations, who have far different concerns than we mere mortals of this earth.