Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS online services will shut down in April

> most people really, really do not like that Winnie the Pooh is being expanded in the horror direction.

Those people can make the choice not to buy or consume those kinds of works. That's their right, but it does not and must not infringe on the rights of others who don't share their delicate sensibilities.

> Some are even calling for copyright to be eternal because the public is showing that it cannot handle public domain responsibly.

There is nothing at all irresponsible about artistic works that appeal to some people but not others. Outside of legal constraints, there is no one person or group dictating to the world which art is or isn't responsible and I'm so glad the decision of where those lines are drawn and when they should be crossed is largely left up to the artists when creating and to the audience when consuming. Artists and audiences self-censor all the time and it isn't a problem.

By way of example, when Gaiman was writing Neverwhere he thought it originally made running away and joining a underworld society of homeless people seem fun and magical, and he worried that making homelessness a bit too cool might inspire young readers to make poor choices. He made changes to his story until he felt comfortable with what he was putting out into the world. I think I'd have liked to read his original version, but I fully respect that he felt it would be irresponsible. Not every writer would have made that choice, and certainly not every writer should be forced to.

Every author should be free to decide for themselves if they're comfortable or not with their own words. Audiences should be free to walk away from things that make them too uncomfortable, and free to stay and enjoy what the artist created otherwise. The absolute worst case scenario would be one where the only art we ever have access to is a bunch of watered down, homogenized, G-rated content that doesn't confront or challenge anyone at all.

> There's even a growing argument that copyright actually prevents unoriginal ripoffs and shock content more than it stifles creativity.

I have no doubt that it does, at times, prevent some "ripoffs" or shock content, but I fail to see how censoring art to avoid those things is in any way preferable. The harm to society caused by censorship far outweighs the harm caused by "things exist that I don't like". It simply isn't worth the loss of our freedom to prevent "bad" art.

Worse, even perpetual copyright wouldn't eliminate those things entirely. Shock content, especially those created based on 'wholesome' artistic works has always been with us, and not even copyright has been able to stop it. For just about every franchise you can imagine illegal artistic works created to satisfy 'Rule 34' exist and illegal fan fiction can be found filled with sex and gore. None of it has caused society to collapse. It won't destroy society when that art can be legally made and sold either.

> The IP rightsholder has decided it is no longer profitable to make more.

That's rarely the case. Most of the time rightsholders want to keep old works out of circulation because they would compete with the new works they are promoting and want people spending their money on instead.

There are some physical works that are expensive enough to produce that profit can be an issue, but things that are extremely inexpensive to produce such as paperbacks or disk media (CD/DVD/bluray) still go out of print all the time. It's not that those artistic works couldn't make the corporation a profit. It's just that the company is betting that they can make higher profits by keeping those works out of the hands of the public, which is deplorable.

I can't blame a company for not producing something that actually won't make them money, but corporations locking away our culture for more than a century just so that they can maximize their profits is a sickening example of pure avarice that copyright law wasn't originally intended to allow for.

The real issue with physical products is that they're harder for the public to duplicate. If I could copy a complicated out of print board games as easily as I could an out of print album on MP3, I'd argue that we should have the right to do that too. 3D printers haven't caught on to the point where there's one in every home, or it might even be possible.

I understand and agree, but I cannot fathom why anyone invests on Nintendo's digital platform, as they cycle completely every 5-10 years (e.g. Wii Virtual Console).

The games are great, but the way they milk their pĺayers on recycled content on _____ platform is insane.

That's a distinction without a difference, imho. Either IP that the owner has decided to stop selling should be free to reproduce, or it shouldn't, regardless of their justification and the medium.

> Make it apply not just to videogames, but books, movies, music, etc.

The pedantic point being that this started with video games and then was extended to other works. But fine let's talk about everything else too.

Everything on that list can be sold digitally.

Even physical works can, to a large degree, be made to order and drop shipped.

But again this is beside the point. These are the technicalities of how it would be implemented and beside the real point: if you have not been selling a copyrighted work for some length of time (between 1 minute and 3 decades) you should no longer have the right to that government granted monopoly since you are no longer using it for the reason it was given to you.