You get a certain period to commercialize it, then it's public property. Hiding it away to prevent that is a breach of the spirit of the agreement society made with the creator.

That you believe it's a "ridiculous" argument shows how much you've been brainwashed by corporations.

All this stuff is generally built on the shoulders of previous works, that are public domain. Copying story structures, phrasing, etc. Even entire storylines.

And that's before we get onto the fact that all these corporations benefited from eveything we paid for. Laws to protect their IP, enforcement, infrastructure paid with by public money, education of workers, etc..

They've got their hands out to take, take, take, but when it comes to holding up to their part of the bargain, it's suddenly extensions on copyright terms, minor tweaks to "renew" IP that was never part of the original deal, etc. while feeding a ton of cash to politicians in what looks like a bribe, acts like a bribe, but is termed "lobbying".

Whether or not it's a freedom people should have is a difficult question to answer because we don't know what the modern world would be like without copyright (I expect creators would try and get paid for creating more works so it might look like how nowadays some shows end in cliffhangers to give the creators some leverage over the publishers to say 'look, people want to know what comes next, maybe you should let us do another season').

I can totally understand that, it just means they don't buy the various excuses for why they shouldn't be allowed to. I wouldn't either, in most "lost media" cases.