Lengthy copyright protection is extremely inefficient for the dissemination of works  Only a tiny fraction of copyrighted works ever become massive successes, breeding the riches of a JK Rowling or the like. Far more often, artists only make modest profits from their artistic works. In fact, almost all income from copyright comes immediately after publication of a work. [1] Ultimately, copyright serves to protect a work from being used, while at the same time that work does little to benefit the original artist. Freeing up availability of artistic works much faster would serve to benefit consumers in the extreme, who could now enjoy the works for free and engage in the dissemination and reexamination of the works. If artists care about having their work seen and appreciated, they should realize that they are best served by reduced copyright. Ultimately, long copyrights tend only to benefit corporations that buy up large quantities of work, and exploit it after artists’ deaths. Notably when the United States has a system that required a renewal of copyright after 28 years only 15% of copyrights were actually renewed. [2] It would be far better for everyone that copyright be shortened and to increase appreciation of works.  [1] Gapper, J. “Shorten Copyright and Make it Stick”. Financial Times. 1 July 2010   [2] Center for the Study of the Public Domain, “What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?”, Duke University, 2012,