Agreed. But putting stuff in the public domain can be a good thing.
The fact that Crowther & Woods' "Adventure" was considered (possibly
wrongly) to be in the public domain was a good thing for the adventure
game genre; just look at how many companies got started by producing a
port or an extension of "Adventure"! Having a substantial public domain
is beneficial to a culture: where would we be without the ability to
shamelessly steal from Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Austen, Carroll and
others (just as they "stole" from earlier authors)? I'm all for shorter
copyright expiry times.
One reason for putting code in the public domain is to encourage people
to use it without it being hedged about with restrictions (can't sell
it, must maintain original copyright notice, must respect moral rights
of the author, etc). When I donate code (such as the Inform code for
the beginning of the "Alice" game) into the public domain, I mean it: if
you want to rip my name off it, substitute yours, and sell the result,
then do so!
-- Gareth Rees