Comment by Aloisius
We know what the world looks like without copyright and that world has far fewer works created and very few artists who can do it full-time absent patronage or independent wealth.
Banning the nonsense that is character copyright and shortening copyright back down to a reasonable length of time (say, 20 years) would still enable the creation of more culturally-relevant derivative works without pauperizing every artist.
How could we possibly know that? Copyright has existed since before the industrial revolution even started. What you described is not really that far from reality today: most artists are not really making a living. The words "starving artist" have not even begun to lose their meaning. Every artist I know has been failed by copyright. The value a copyright creates is not applied to the art: it's applied to the moat around the art. The only certain beneficiaries are the giant corporations that use their collected moats to drown out small competition, including artists.