David,

"You are confusing "closed" and "proprietary".  Patented algorithms are
proprietary but open.  To be subject to copyright, something must be
published in the first place.  Closed source is covered by trade
secrets, not copyright.  It's the distributed binaries which are covered
by copyright."

You are right in pointing out this difference. But I am not confusing closed and proprietary.

The definition of proprietary might indeed sometimes include patents (see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software)

However, we are actually mostly in agreement, because this is exactly the difference that Stallman is not recognizing.

I mean, don't tell me that all this talk is about patents. No. It is about copyright. And about not being able to see source code, which is why Stallman says "people are kept in ignorance".

Which is the argument I was responding to.

in excess of 70 years beyond your death."

Agreed. I am also not happy with the current copyright law.