alt Hacker NewsIMO copyright simply isn’t fine grained enough. Allowing 1:1 copies after 20 years isn’t economically meaningful to the creators in general, but when you use a work as part of a movie, commercial, political campaign, etc it’s co opting the original creator as if they where endorsing what you’re doing. Which simply isn’t appropriate while the creator is alive.
On the other hand if you’re selling action figures you expect little kids to create their own stories with those characters. Culture has long mixed existing characters in new ways just look at any mythology before writing. Jokes, memes, fanfics, etc are the natural progression of a culture and giving up on that seems detrimental in ways that aren’t obvious.
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Your distinction between commercial use and things like meme culture doesn’t hold up. For example, memes can harm creators too, like Pepe the Frog being co-opted by far-right groups. If you want to protect creators, there’s no simple solution, as both can distort their intent.
I agree that we're probably giving up something culturally and socially important by restricting the telling and remixing of stories, myths, characters, etc. As for co-opting work to spread a message the author wouldn't necessarily endorse, that interpretation sounds like one borne of a world with strict copyright that has trained people to expect all instances of a character or uses of a work to involve the author's permission. In a world without such an expectation that sort of usage would not be misinterpreted as endorsement.