There needs to be some overhauls to fix the damage Disney et al. did to our copyright system. The Copyright Act of 1976 and later Copyright Term Extension Act did so much damage to the concept of public domain. Being able to own exclusive control over a work for up to 120 years is insane.
I think capping copyright at 20 years would do wonders.
After 20 years everyone's gotten paid and can move onto other projects.
I can never imagine this happening though. It's too profitable to keep milking the rare hit IP for decades. For example, Harry Potter has already made JK Rolling a billionaire. She'd be fine if the books went public domain.
So many works will be lost since they're no longer available legally. All that artistic effort, gone.
Of course you'd grandfather in older works. But it's a moot point, in most places money is more important than access to art. I can't imagine such a law ever being passed.
The tragedy here is so much will simply disappear. Original publisher doesn't want to do a re-issue, how will you access it in 30 years?
> Those laws were mostly made before perfect digital copies
There are a variety of arguments used to justify copyright, ranging from philosophical to economical, and I can't think of any of them whose validity or lack thereof depends on whether or not copies are perfect.
Those laws were mostly made before perfect digital copies, but also before digital enforcement and "licensing“ instead of ownership.