The most interesting thing about copyright, is that it kind of acts as a filter on memory.

Copyrighted works that don't get enough eyeballs, fast enough, turn into zombies, forgotten.

Whole libraries worth of 20th century books, that no one will ever read because copyright holders trapped them in memory purgatory

Whole archives of 20th century music that you simply will never hear.

If you can take time to write, *and* someone is persuaded to publish it, your work might well disappear into that copyright void.

No one will even know it exists, except for a lawyer 50 years later whose software flags it for a takedown

There's a whole stretch of 20th century art that just just vanished into copyright purgatory.

It's a Wonderful Life and Night of the Living Dead both entered public domain due to paperwork fuckups.

Both, being accidentally free, got absorbed into pop culture.

Meanwhile there are tons of movies from 1968 that you will never be able to legally watch.

Some, because they cost just a bit too much money to show, and got memory holed.