Literally all of the time? If I copy something from you, that's generally 100% legal. The only other exceptions are things like patents, where the inventor/creator has to go out of their way to activate copy protections. "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper [candle] at mine, receives light without darkening me." --Thomas Jefferson

Before 1989, copyright was also opt-in. Check out the timeline under "Notable Dates in United States Copyright" https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1a.html It's a mess of shifting categories and retroactive extensions.

You mean, In what other market does the law ban competition? Freedom should be the default, not "copyright" since it does the opposit. In many countries te public domain was the rule and copyright was the exception until the US started pressuring nations via multilateral treaties and economic sanctions or "incentives".

Because you will eventually die, and after many years any claim that you lay to your intellectual property or creative output will cease to be relevant.

The content that we create does not exist in a vacuum- humans create for the overall good of society. Everything you see and use day-to-day is an incredible amalgamation of thoughts and ideas woven together from centuries of our past and present collective knowledge.

The notion that an individual or organization can maintain exclusive control of "intellectual property" in perpetuity stands at odds with thousands of years of human history. Modern patent and copyright law seems to have forgotten this.

> Why? In what other area does the public automaticallt get a right to something someone else created?

If you make a chair and I buy it from you, I can do whatever I want with that chair.