Given that (1) most people are or are becoming "authors" now that the tools to create and distribute have become much more distributed then ever before; that (2) the way copyright works at the moment is to reward only popularity, not original creativity; that (3) for any author obscurity is a much larger problem then infringement ever could be; that (4) creativity may not need encouragement as becomes obvious seeing how much is intentionally produced to be widely distributed for free (open source, creative commons, youtube, etc)?; that (5) only a very tiny percentage of authors will ever get "rich" of their work.

So perhaps we need to look at another solution?

An unconditional basic income for all would support authors/artists/anyone exactly at the moment they need it to do their work. It will not make anyone rich, but it will enable works that can't be created at the moment (because the artist needs to do other work instead). When an author does become populair they will not have been forced into an unfavorable contract with a publisher when they where broke, working poor.

An unconditional basic income would enable people to be creative, it would pay just enough so that money isn't an issue anymore. This would be more effective way to promote the arts and sciences then copyright in its current form.