It seems to have a few more technical details.

The downsides of murder clearly outweigh the upsides. The fact that we're debating here shows that's not the case for copyright.

> ...somebody having the rights to a cartoon mouse in perpetuity isn't actually holding society back is it?

People want to adapt that mouse into their own works, as they have done with stories since stories started being told. They do so even if they know they're breaking the law. That alone should be reason to reconsider copyright.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and reusing facets of modern stories isn't somehow less creative than reusing old stories or reusing lived experiences. You can take the general story beats of a popular work, strip out all copyrightable elements, and end up with something wholly derivative. You can also build on a known work and end up with something that's fresh, creative, maybe something that engages readers/watchers/listeners of the base work in a way that nothing fully original could. Take Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality; it clearly reuses another work's characters and setting, but it would be worse off without it.

You also don't have to rent/buy a place to live, but I wouldn't want to live a life without a roof over my head or access to creative works of my culture. When you accept that access to media is a necessity (and people today do treat it as such, just try finding someone who doesn't listen to music, watch videos, read books...), you clearly see that having copyright is a decision made by the state that results in wealth transfer from every citizen to authors and publishers.

Those authors/publishers do provide value, so it's not necessarily a bad thing, but as with every market intervention, the specifics need to be carefully considered.

There are also other models than creating a work without any income, then recouping that cost by a state-granted monopoly. You can release preview chapters and then solicit donations from interested readers. You can build on your reputation and then promise to finish the book later for some up-front payment. These might not work for everyone, but they are in wide use today. One could argue that removing options for those authors that depend on copyright today is still a reasonable price to pay for removing all the abuses of copyright.

I wouldn't say we have more "traditional" art that an author spends time creating with the vision of selling copies for years to come, than we did when copyright terms were shorter.

See also the Velvet Revolution for a pretty large shift away from totalitarianism without any deaths.