The concept that corporations can have control over the works of a long dead person and can claim damages for people archiving and distributing those works is stupid.

Being rich is not the same as being intelligent

Something being stupid and something being technically not illegal are wildly orthogonal.

Thuggery and exploitation

Getting billions out of something doesn't make it smart.

People get billions out of lots of dumb stuff.

I’m reading the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and just heard a story how the toothpaste craze in the early 20th century was started by Pepsodent linking toothpaste to people feeling the film on their teeth. But this film isn’t bad and toothpaste doesn’t do anything to help with it. You can get rid of the film with anything, like eating an apple.

It’s dumb that people would feel this film and want to use pepsodent to brush away the film. But they made billions.

Lots of dumb things make money. Doesn’t mean they should. And certainly doesn’t mean they should to the limitation or destruction of other value (in this case maximalist copyright laws are endangering the preservation of culture).