Copyright should probably grant some benefit to an author, but just the bare minimum necessary to incentivize people to actually submit their work and file for copyright (also, we should resume requiring that you actually file for copyright, as was the case before 1978). This probably means some period of exclusive monetization rights. Anyone should be able to search for and read any filed works for free from the moment they are filed, or possibly after this exclusive monopoly period.
Any additional benefits to copyright holders beyond what is needed to make sure we don't lose the works are essentially graft, no different in principle to the medieval church selling lucrative offices.
If these things are valuable only because of scarcity, then we are incentivizing scarcity by granting monopoly, so we should do as little of that as we can manage. If they are inherently valuable, they should be as widely disseminated as possible (a cost that government can easily afford given modern technology). If they are worthless, there is no harm in the government keeping a copy anyway.
Any additional benefits to copyright holders beyond what is needed to make sure we don't lose the works are essentially graft, no different in principle to the medieval church selling lucrative offices.
If these things are valuable only because of scarcity, then we are incentivizing scarcity by granting monopoly, so we should do as little of that as we can manage. If they are inherently valuable, they should be as widely disseminated as possible (a cost that government can easily afford given modern technology). If they are worthless, there is no harm in the government keeping a copy anyway.