To be fair, at least according to the article, they are trying to get copyright coverage reduced from >50 years to 5 years.
Personally, I don’t think either is correct. If it were in the 10-25 year range, I think there’d be less of an issue.
Perhaps what needs to happen are two different copyright protections. One that prohibits sharing works for no commercial gain - that might be 10 years or something close.
Another would protect against commercial use, such as selling media with the materials contained, or using in another work (like music in a movie). That would have a longer duration.
I think, with a system like that, the more broad-based availability of works to individuals would then drive the use of the work in commercial ventures.
As it is now, there are all sorts of works that you can’t even obtain on any media because there isn’t enough demand to produce it. So everybody loses.
Well said.