Copyright and patents have an age limit - for good reasons. If anyone would have a patent for the wheel, it would have expired by now - letting everyone use the design for free.
Copyright restrictions are so lengthy that only people born at the tail-end of the author's life will ever be able to build on that work. Take the Lord of the Rings for example: Tolkien has been dead for half a century, the society that recognised and popularised his work is largely dead, having had no opportunity to contribute to, or build on it.
The idea that society has raised multiple generations of people who weren't even alive contemporaneously with the author doesn't sit well personally.
Even worse than that. They want us to pay royalties to the person who has a piece of paper saying they own the idea of a wheel.