I understand that aspect of it. I just completely disagree in everybody's enthusiasm over characters or whatever becoming public domain. It's just been annoying seeing anyone going "Oh yay! Now I can do that stupid idea with Winnie the Pooh or Mickey Mouse that's been kicking around in my head all these years. And better yet I can profit off it. Not through artistic merit, but more so name and branding recognition. It's not like I'll have any original ideas or takes on it that warrant any actual thought since I already lack the creative capacity to come up with my own cartoon mouse or bear."
And in regards to things like Dracula or Frankenstein I haven't personally seen any sort of derivative works that sprung from the the expiring copyrights of those novels that in my opinion exceeded the originals. They already make adaptations of copyrighted properties all the time. People write fan fiction that are of and about copyrighted characters. It happens all the time, just because it's technically legal to do doesn't actually make it novel in anyway. It's already everybody's once it's out there. An author can not fully control everybody on the planet to do everything possible to those characters under the sun, or not make derivative works through varying degrees of infringement, or simply inspired by the original work.
The less power corporate entities hold over culture, the better. Part of that is of course creating your own original works, but another part of that is corporations losing their own.
And frankly, I'm shocked that you've never seen or read a version of Dracula or Frankenstein better than the original. The expiring copyrights of those led to absolutely incredible work. For Dracula, you simply must see Werner Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, which is perhaps the most haunting Dracula story ever told. There's also the fantastic Marvel comic series, The Tomb of Dracula, which stands as some of the company's best work, featuring beautiful linework from Gene Colan and pulpy writing from Marv Wolfman. In terms of Frankenstein, James Whales' film Bride of Frankenstein adds a boatload of gay subtext that adds a completely new dimension to the source material that, were it still under copyright, simply wouldn't be possible.
The freedom permitted by the public domain has given us incredible work. Meanwhile, what did copyright do for these characters? It almost led to the destruction of the original Nosferatu, which was an unauthorized release that Bram Stoker's heirs attempted to destroy through a legal ruling. Can you imagine that? One of the greatest and most influential films ever made, lost forever? It nearly happened!
Oh, and my GF and I went and made our own version of Dracula who's a trans girl. We made a visual novel about her. Is that something that would have been permitted under copyright? We also made use of live action footage from public domain films as part of that VN... which also wouldn't be permitted if they were copyrighted. But because they were public domain, we can have some black and white footage of a big rubbery bat flying around without needing to make it ourselves!
In short, the public domain is great, has led to amazing work, and gives anyone the freedom to put their own fun spin on already existing characters, mixing them into original stories and work. It is reclaiming cultural signifiers to be available for everyone, and nothing is bad about that.
