At the founding of the US, copyright was for 14 years, with optional extension to 28. Lobbying since then has extended it, in many cases, to over 100 years, and via repeated extension, potentially to a de facto infinite term. That was kind of greedy.
Every copyright holder has a mini-monopoly in the production (aka reproduction) of their own content. It is a well-established result in economics that a monopolist provides a price/quantity combination which maximizes their own profits, but not the total welfare of both the producer and consumer. (With competitive providers, under usual and fairly reasonable assumptions, the price/quantity of a good traded trends towards a level maximizing overall welfare.) So the very idea of "intellectual property" as little monopolies-on-reproduction is in service of rightsholder greed, maximizing their profits at the expense of others, often beyond necessary creative costs or incentives.
Granting such monopolies may have been a necessary compromise when copying and distribution was costly. A better system that maximizes returns for a larger group should be possible today.
Every copyright holder has a mini-monopoly in the production (aka reproduction) of their own content. It is a well-established result in economics that a monopolist provides a price/quantity combination which maximizes their own profits, but not the total welfare of both the producer and consumer. (With competitive providers, under usual and fairly reasonable assumptions, the price/quantity of a good traded trends towards a level maximizing overall welfare.) So the very idea of "intellectual property" as little monopolies-on-reproduction is in service of rightsholder greed, maximizing their profits at the expense of others, often beyond necessary creative costs or incentives.
Granting such monopolies may have been a necessary compromise when copying and distribution was costly. A better system that maximizes returns for a larger group should be possible today.