We should give up the battle with Disney. They have billions of dollars to throw at politicians and lobbyists to ensure the Mouse never goes out of copyright (even though they treat it more as a trademark, and couldn't care less whether people watch the original steamboat willy cartoons on youtube.)
But scientific research is different. Nonfiction work in general is different. Why should vastly different categories of works, with different values to society, economics, etc, be treated the same by copyright law?
I propose we vastly decrease the restrictions of copyright on at least nonfiction works. Make them enter the public domain sooner, make it more difficult to register for copyright, perhaps require renewal half way through to prove the work is still economical, etc.
It's just obscene that the vast majority of humanity's knowledge is locked away behind copyright ridiculousness. Journals charge obscene prices to access papers, which were often funded with public money. Works sit behind copyright barriers long after the author's death and they fall out of print.
The internet could be much greater than it is. I mean sure there is a ton of content on the internet already, and wikipedia has been fantastic and collecting the world's knowledge. But there is so much stuff that only exists in books and papers, that should be publicly accessible.
See also the science section on Public Domain Day: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2015/pre-1976 and https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976