I believe in the concept that if you create something, you should be able to profit from it. What I take issue with is hoarding ideas and properties (particularly artwork) in a way that prevents others from enjoying them in their own way.

It gets more complicated with art. An artist no longer owns that art once it's in the public. Sure, they own the original idea and should be able to support themselves with that, but if I want to make a derivative work then there should be no barriers to allowing me to do so.

It's a hard line to walk, and I'm constantly reevaluating where I think that line is. Right now piracy for me is a way of "test driving" content. If I like it and want to support it, I will purchase it later. This is how I am able to have bookshelves filled with books I've actually read, and video games I've actually played. The ones I don't enjoy/buy were never going to get a purchase from me anyhow, so they've lost nothing.

In my opinion, copyright laws should only apply to the original text, and only for a limited time. If someone wants to make a sequel to the book I just wrote? Go for it, it's not going to be cannon or from the same author. If they want to publish it in Spanish? No, it's substantially the same.

Likewise, if I paint a picture of my OC, I should have copywrite over that picture, no one else can sell or print it, but not the characteristics which make up the OC.

It seems at first that this would lead to a horrible Disney stealing intellection property situation, but I don't think so. Instead, everyone would be doing the reverse. Pop culture would be reabsorped by the masses. Films are,at the end of the day, produced by artist, except now those artist are the essential element, not the ip. A studio is only valuable if they can produce great films, not aquire the best brand. Let's let the masses take a crack at superman.

Copyright laws are quite bad as they look today imo. They are supposedly made to improve creativity but when big companies buy up different IPs and patents they stifle the creativity more than anything. Look at fantastic four, Sony has the movie rights for that IP and they damn make sure that they produce movies often enough that they keep it, but only juuust often enough. If some other studio, small studio or indy producer wants to try they should be able to.

Another thing is lotr, Amazon has the rights for some parts but not all, meaning they can not write about a character if it wasn’t in the ending section of the books. This stifles their creativity, and it’s not even the author that controls this - it’s the descendants! Why does the descendants have such control over something they did not create is beyond me..

10 years limit, absolutely non transferable, limited to human beings (not abstract legal entities) .
Eventually extendable to lifetime of the creator if the work is still being developed, to prevent being usurped by copycats.

I also believe that facilitating voluntary sponsorship (a la patreon, but without letting 10% get siphoned by leeches) is preferable to selling works. Especially since distribution is now pretty much free.

Instead of going all in and writing a way too long comment, I‘m gonna tell you about something which says more and better than I ever could:

"Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Levine, David K, Boldrin, Michele, it can be found for free on for example Anna‘s Archive.

I’m kind of with a lot of the other people here it seems, but for me:

• 10-15 years max, that should be more than enough to make plenty of money from whatever you create, then it belongs to the world. I’ve heard people argue against this with: what about when the artist gets older and has to retire? Or, what about leaving something to their kids? Well, save and budget properly and learn how to live on your pension, just like everybody else.
• Copyright belongs to the person who made the thing. A legal entity like a corporation can lease the right to use the thing, but it can’t own the thing.
• If the copyright holder dies before the copyright term is up, it goes to the public domain. Someone tried to argue with me once that this would lead to artists being killed so people could get out of paying them, but I’d counter that the instances now of artists being killed so someone else can inherit their copyright is basically zero so I don’t really see why it would go any differently the other way.

Some of that probably needs dome fine-tuning, but it has to be better than the current system whereby you end up with mega-corporations endlessly milking shitty derivative works out of someone’s creative efforts a century after they’re dead, or people who’s full-time job is to cash-in on something their grandfather wrote, the copyright now having become multi-generational.