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The term [Intellectual Property] carries a bias that is not hard to see: it suggests thinking about copyright, patents and trademarks by analogy with property rights for physical objects. (This analogy is at odds with the legal philosophies of copyright law, of patent law, and of trademark law, but only specialists know that.) These laws are in fact not much like physical property law, but use of this term leads legislators to change them to be more so. Since that is the change desired by the companies that exercise copyright, patent and trademark powers, the bias introduced by the term “intellectual property” suits them.

The term “intellectual property” is at best a catch-all to lump together disparate laws. Nonlawyers who hear one term applied to these various laws tend to assume they are based on a common principle and function similarly. Nothing could be further from the case. These laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues.

1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html

Using terms like "Intellectual Property" to describe specific aspects of copyright law isn't helpful. Due to the interests of capital of the Disney corporation, the Mickey Mouse Law (Copyright Term Extension Act) was lobbied and passed in Congress, leading to copyright lasting for 95 years. This means anyone who saw a piece of work when it was released to the public would pass away before ever being able to utilize it. There are other laws such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that also prohibit the remixing/redistribution of media via the internet.

TL;DR: Intellectual Property is a revisionist term and designed to overgeneralize concrete aspects of copyright, trademark and patent law. It's the same way that companies got us to say "piracy" instead of "prohibited copying." Or how "hacker" became a pejorative term for those who break or crack security.