I wish it was just the US copyright system that’s the problem, some nations have worse copyright laws. In France for example architecture can have copyright, and renovations have a separate copyright from the original architecture… The lights on the Eiffel Tower have a separate copyright from the Eiffel Tower itself, which is currently in the public domain. So while it’s completely fine to take a photo of the Tower during the day at night you need to have permission from the copyright holder, and they have taken action against people who have taken photos of the Tower at night.
Then there are some nations where there isn’t even a public domain and stuff never loses their copyright.
Many of these worse laws have been driven by US and EU trade policies and Trade Agreements mandating draconian copyright and intellectual property laws.