Yes that is what copyright/patents are supposed to be about, but that doesn't make the least bit of sense due to two things.
- Indefinite extension of copyright
- Software
With a book you're given a copy. That lasts indefinitely, while copyright is supposed to have a limited term. So eventually like you said things will become free, and they are always open because that is a requirement! Publishing makes the work available!
With software you write a set of instructions in a language for a predictable machine "mechanical process" to build another thing, the binary code. By doing this the usefulness is split in two parts; One the executable, one the source-code.
You can learn from the executable but only via a very difficult process as the machine code is not designed to be human readable. You can learn from the source in most cases far more easily, although some "clever" programmers are able to write horrible code of course, but you can't actually execute it without first creating your own translation into machine code, in most cases.
Software manages to create a conflict through this division of usefulness into parts. The machine-code is only useful for half of its purpose and does not contribute significantly to progress. The wheel must be reinvented over and over again, unless you can manage to chop out a functioning wheel from the rest of the huge machinery that is an executable binary.
The source-code can be kept locked away, never to be made public and ensured to disintegrate. The binary however still receives full protection, all the benefits of copyright for the author and none of the benefits for society.
I've already "ported" my synthesizer to linux but it would remain closed source, and I can't make a release until everything is ready to be released. I'm hoping the next version (8) will be available as mac VST and linux VST in x64 and 32-bit as well as the existing windows versions. That may be pushed back to version 9 though.