It's the aftermath from inventing intellectual property. Patents were once called monopolies. What I find amusing is, you get this staunchly anti-government/libertarians who are also incredibly pro-IP. And yet IP is all based on governments granting monopoly power over ideas, with violations enabling the owner to engage in all kinds of punative behavior with the government as the strong arm. Ironic.

I think there's something valid about a government protected temporary monopoly. But in the case of copyright, for example, it's life plus 70 or more years. It is ridiculous, as in, worthy of ridicule. Medical patents are 20 years, which itself is too long, but it's made worse by rather permissive ways in which they can be effectively renewed by barely changing the medicine.

You know what it is? It's a way to get white collar work to continue to pay out more than, and longer than, the actual amount and duration of work on a thing takes. It's an incentive to do that kind of work. But I agree that it's grossly lopsided when you can't do repair or research on that same material - that's one of the original points of patent and copyright law. Put your ideas on paper so that you not only get protection for a while, but others can create derivatives that are better, and thereby we learn more about it all.