Copyright is needed to protect artists. However today its been corrupted and is being used to protect big moneyed interests, not song writers, and is actually hindering art.
Happy Birthday for example is copy written, owned by Time Warner. They didn't write the song, but make 2 million a year off it.
Not only that but many public venues where aspiring musicians might have gotten the chance to play, are being shut down because of overzealous copy write making it too expensive.
Making it to where only the song writer owns copyright would protect song writers, instead of corporations , and limiting it to 10 years would be enough for the artist to make money but yet still let art move to public domain to be shared freely, instead of not being played at all due to large fees.