I have been doing some research on copyright and how things should be. I came across this paper by Rufus Pollock. He is a graduate student studying economics and intellectual property rights.
According to Pollock, as the cost of producing a creative work goes down, the length of copyright should follow the same trend. Copyright for a creative work created today should last only fourteen years.
In actuality, copyright law has done the opposite and increased from 14 years in 1790 to about 100 years (life of the author plus 70 years) today. Giving the author control of the copyright for a long duration ensures that any income produced by the work goes to the author. Pollock’s calculations show this isn’t true and that we are stifling innovation with longer and longer copyright restrictions.