Technology

I'm not confusing anything, I'm providing a different perspective of the same historical record. Copyright has objectively empowered authors, and the public, even if it did not do so to what you (or I) deem adequate levels. Royalties, revision rights, and public domain releases are objective.

Calling out your stance as cynical is a observation of your continued insistence to ignore any and all silver linings to a system that has offered objective societial benefits and author protections. I don't hold the perspective that it is the system that could have been the most successful in that, simply that it has demonstrated objective good. Neither of us are in a position to fairly and fully evaluate that against the bad.

As for Linux and the GPL, It could not contridict you more as I've literally an example of a massive conglomerate corporation caught exploiting FOSS and open systems in order to capture them. This objectively happened (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish). Without the protection of copyleft this would still be perfectly possible, and in the absence of copyright likely standardized as practice. So the GPL is not people engineering a hack into a system to break it, it's people using the system as intended and designed to protect authored work.

As for copyright now, and historically, I make no apologies for the abuse or it's current bastardized state but as far as copyright dying, I see that as defeatist and cynical. It needs work, remade for the modern age even, but it has provided value to authors and necessary protections to FOSS.