Comment Re:Wrong. (Score 1) 142
A brand or trademark is a bit of a different animal (heh) but let's set that aside for now and talk just about the drawing/character/cartoon/work of art, etc. The social contract is that if you want copyright protections from the government, then when that protection term is over you release it into the public domain. Same for patents, if you want patent protection, then you must document your invention sufficiently such that after the patent expires anyone can reasonably replicate it. This how copyright and patent law "promote the progress of science and useful arts." It's not JUST protecting the creator's work so they can profit from it, it's ALSO limited in time (though that's been effed up with copyright due to lobbying) and requires releasing that work to the public later on. Give the creator/inventor their exclusive control so they're incentivized, limit the time so they have to create/invent more rather than resting on their laurels, and release it to the public so they can iterate and derive their own works from it and the cycle repeats.