You're all wrong! Intellectual property is whatever we say it is. The "we" in this case is the government who hopefully (wishfully) represents us. If I write a book and you own a house I have as much right to hang on to that book as you have to hang on to your house.
Of course there is the concept of eminent domain. If your house is needed to benefit drivers who need a new highway they'll take it away from you. If my book is needed to benefit humanity ... but wait! Where's the provision to deal with that?
Of course this is all nonsense. The Constitution said 'limited time' which was then defined as 14 years. And it wasn't about ownership. The creator owned distribution rights. No-one can own an idea. That's just silly. Anyway, special interests have lobbied at great expense to turn that Constitutional provision into something that looks like long-term ownership and if we want to remain law abiding citizens we have to let them stick it to us. So folks, bend over and be grateful for the privlige.
If it sounds like I'm against copyright, even in it's silly present form, I'm not. Something is needed and for most of our history what we have is better than nothing at all. I'm not sure that's still true. Maybe! Maybe not! There's a lot to consider. But copyright has always been very artificial and variable and ephemeral and has little to do with anything with a foundation.
The way we do copyrights is dumb as hell. Any changes we make will be equally dumb. The whole idea is dumb. We need it so we do the best we can. That's not very good. It's just the best we can do. But let's do keep griping about it. That's the only chance we have to improve it.
Barry