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Originally Posted by HansTWN
In that case it would be called "copy privilege". It is called copy right because the situation is reversed. Actually it is authors who are granting fair use exceptions to society. Why would authors need society to graciously assign them the privilege of getting the rights to something they have created? The kind of society, where the individual is at the mercy of the government to decide if what is his is really his, that is your ideal? The author has created the work, by natural law it is his.
It is the authors who bestow upon society the right to the works after the protection period expires (yes, I know life +70 is too long) and to certain fair use exceptions in exchange for protection against illegal use by others. All those examples you mentioned are sales or advertising tools. Of course an author can choose to give away 1 or 1 million copies for free.
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Natural law, I don't think that word means what you think it means. Things like natural rights don't need to enumerated, you have the natural right to urinate there's no law giving you permission you can just let go. Which is why there are laws to prevent you from doing it say in a courtroom. Laws do not create natural rights, they restrict them. There's no natural right to control an idea, there is a natural right to copy you've been doing it since birth, its how you learned language, walking, using a fork. The copyright law restircts this right.
Laws come from society. And yes governments do decide whats yours or at least they decide what isn't yours, any government without that power won't last. They can tax, they can emanate domain, they can seize, they can outlaw. If authors didn't need a grant form society then copyright law wouldn't be necessary, to copy would be impossible. You also need a grant from society to keep your personal possessions, owning something that isn't on your person isn't a natural right either, its a legal one.
Anyway you've already agreed copyright is too long so you've conceded that there is no right to control an idea forever. if it was authors who decided to give things to the public domain then you'd have to say they could decide not to do it after life+70, they can't at least till Disney buys 51 senators and adds another 20 years.
I think you said somewhere you're German, could there be perhaps a language problem here? you seem to have two concepts reversed.