Note that the story I think you mean goes farther than merely arguing that copyright terms must be finite, but it does illuminate one part of the problem.
When I'm not trying to pack (or at least work up to determined movement) I shall reread it, since it was a long time ago that I read it. If I heard a reference to other parts, they might bring the same story to mind. I'd forgotten the title and author, but concept stuck.
What aspect of the story did I miss? I haven't ever considered a copyright or patent, or the laws, because they've never been anything I needed. The story is much as I remembered. It heartened me in some ways to see it again.
The story discussed the psychi need to "create" in the sense of believing that what one has just made is new, and asserted that a certain amount of cultural forgetting is needed. Having copyrights expire allows works to fall into the public domain, but leaves the record -- the memory -- of the work having existed and having been copyrighted in the past intact. There's no "forgetting", only "you no longer need to ask permission". So the story implies that the solution would require taking things farther than the neccesary first step of allowing copyrights to expire.
OTOH, allowing works to eventually fall into the public domain does facilitate making "derivative works" -- works that are recognized as involving creativity but are not wholly original because they build upon someone else's previous work. There are a lot fewer hoops for me to jump through to publish my own swing arrangement of "Douce Dame Jolie" than of "Losing My Religion".
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OTOH, allowing works to eventually fall into the public domain does facilitate making "derivative works" -- works that are recognized as involving creativity but are not wholly original because they build upon someone else's previous work. There are a lot fewer hoops for me to jump through to publish my own swing arrangement of "Douce Dame Jolie" than of "Losing My Religion".