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Originally Posted by Alanon
Aside from what pwalker8 has stated above, I would add another argument, and that is that your economic premise is based on a fair amount of untenable idealism.
What you seem to believe is that compensation is due to original creators or their heirs in every case of borrowing/influence, use of their intellectual property, which is a noble enough principle. Except that corporations can purchase, gobble up and claim exclusive rights to creative works they had no input in creating, and eternal copyright would make this a living nightmare. And what with the current tendency of granting corporations individual liberties, that is just asking for trouble. Sure, it sounds fair and neat when John Doe asserts his moral and creative rights to ensure his kids and grand-kids will want for nothing, but if we're to assert your principle of property to the fullest, why shouldn't J.P. Morgan buy John's rights outright when he retires, in perpetuity, and proceed to pummel everyone to assert its rights? As long as the transaction is voluntary, your premise would seem to insist that it should occur. But do the consequences seem remotely fair to you, or in the spirit of your original intent?
A legal entity like an author's estate has an economic incentive to be vigorous in safeguarding its rights, even if the claims are untrue. So what we'd get in practice is a bunch of wealthy impactful estates suing (often frivolously) smaller or mid-tier authors in order to assert their rights, just in case they might milk some more money out of them if the work becomes popular. We see such nuisance claims everywhere, and they work very well. And before anyone says "the legal system will separate between what's frivolous and what's not" that's where the second prong of idealism sets in. Western courts are biased towards corporate interests, and much of the laws are written through lobbyists. What perpetual copyright would engender is a new industry of purchasing and trading with copyrights. Authors would simply cease to take risks out of fear of litigation, financial ruin or jail time, if proven guilty. Why would anyone try and make a creative industry into something resembling a real-estate market, with unhinged price fluctuations that caused Americans unable to afford a home in 70% of their country?
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We see your second argument already in action in the patent industry, and that's an industry with much shorter time frames of protection. Corporations buy up portfolios of patents so they will the ability to counter sue if they get sued. While patents have been around for a long time, it was a combination of the patent office saying "we will just go ahead and grant patents and let the courts sort it out" and lawyers saying "Hey, if we threaten to sue, people will pay us $X just to go away regardless of the merit of the case" and finally, the lawyers finding a court that was open to expanding the definition of what is patent-able.