That's true, and I wouldn't want to take that away from people. However, there's the greedy side that does come through. If you aren't putting out new material and just re-releasing old works charging an arm and a leg calling them "classic" disney, that's just not right. They're getting around these laws by changing them slightly and re-releasing them, punishing those who do the same, and actually stealing other things, changing the colors/animation style, and then yelling about others doing the same. It's about hypocracy. And then there's the Fair Use clause allowing others to take from your work as reference, or parodies, or something like that. Eliminating that (claiming that it's protecting copywrite) hinders cultural progress. It inhibits intellect. It robs us the consumer of more properties that might end up being better and cheaper than existing ones.....oh wait.....
See, copywrite's great and all, but much like every other law and business, those with money want to take advantage of it, and if they can't, change it until they can.