Agreed. While copyright timescales are currently over-extended, copyright was introduced for a very practical reason: "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned"[1].

Personally, I Copyleft my poetry, and make it available to others to use, even for commercial purposes, from 15 years after the poem's publication. I see no reason to keep them locked in a cage long after I'm done with them.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright

If that was the reason, it should be completely abolished as the exact opposite was achieved.

See for example this article [1]

> unlike neighboring England and France, Germany experienced an unparalleled explosion of knowledge in the 19th century.

> it was none other than copyright law, which was established early in Great Britain, in 1710, that crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom.

>Germany, on the other hand, didn't bother with the concept of copyright for a long time. Prussia, then by far Germany's biggest state, introduced a copyright law in 1837, but Germany's continued division into small states meant that it was hardly possible to enforce the law throughout the empire.

For a more contemporary view look at what became of China by ignoring copyright.

[1]: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-...