And, while the author is complaining about semantics, I should point out that the practice he's referring to is called bootlegging, not piracy, and, despite what he says, censorship has nothing to do with whether or not a government body is suppressing speech, it only refers to the suppression of speech.
If the time is limited, copyright represents a limited opportunity, not a long-term cash cow. A work will then be more of an event than oil well, and as a result, creators might get offered a bigger slice of the pie for the opportunity they created. Also, (and I feel this way about patents too) each time that copyright ownership is transferred, I think the remaining time for the copyright should be cut in half. This puts the creator in the driving seat, and diminishes the ability to treat copyrights as currency.
http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-founding-fathers-had-co... 14 years, plus an additional 14 years, if the author, and only the author, wanted to renew it.