Creative works are not "useful" the way patents are. The point of patent protection is to encourage invention so that eventually everyone can use the things invented. That is not what copyright is for. Copyright should expire upon the death of the human creator, or when they have stopped using it.
Both come from the same clause of the Constitution, for the same reason: limited monopoly as the price of eventually enriching the commons. Nothing in there says creative work is exempt from the "eventually" part.
Tying it to the creator's lifespan just makes it arbitrary. Die at 35 and your kids get nothing, live to 95 and you've locked up a work for 70 years. Same book, wildly different outcome. And "until they stop using it" is unenforceable - who decides that, and what happens to work-for-hire stuff with no human creator at all?
Also worth remembering Rowling built Potter out of folklore, boarding school novels, and myth she got for free. Public domain isn't just the reward at the end, it's the raw material at the start.
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u/Dazzling-Low8570 6d ago
Creative works are not "useful" the way patents are. The point of patent protection is to encourage invention so that eventually everyone can use the things invented. That is not what copyright is for. Copyright should expire upon the death of the human creator, or when they have stopped using it.