It's really damn annoying. One of my interests is Celtic Studies/Linguistics and there's a thesis that was written in 1939. It's our one representation of this particular dialect of Irish. I've seen it, it's literally falling apart and the pages are see-through. There's been no digitization of it, and no interest in digitizing it by the University. But I can't check it out for in-library use and make a copy of it myself. When it's lost, it's lost, all because of stupid copyright laws, and won't be in public domain until 2076 in Ireland. It was literally written in 1939 and is our one description of a now extinct part of the language, and will literally be in pieces by then.
Copyright should be no more than 10 years, renewable if there's a sizable re-release (.i. > 1000 copies) to make it constantly accessible at reasonable prices, and only for the original creator's life. That's the only way. If people stop publishing and using stuff, copyright ends.