alt Hacker News...so like, I'm not actually sure the copy and destroy thing is wrong. Hear me out. As an artist, the value of your work is directly related to how many copies are in circulation. You have been paid for the existing copies--you would like those to go out of circulation so that you can mint new copies without deflating the price.
The actual problem is that copyright lasts too long. Imagine if copyright was only 13 years. There's obviously no need to destroy anything that's out of copyright. Anything newer than 13 years should either still be in print, or the original author consciously decided to take it out of print, as is their prerogative.
In a rational world with perfect information, yes, limiting the supply would help the artist. The world is not strictly rational. As someone with family in the book business, I can promise you that there are tons of irrational buyers.
Book buyers will buy because they see other people reading that authors books (more copies in the world means more sales in this case), they will buy special editions of their favorite books they already own, they will buy copies of books that they intend to read once and give to a friend even when the library is a block away and has copies, they will pay extra to have a hardcover new release even though there are effectively infinite other books that could entertain them until the paperback is released. Rational economic choices are actually not a given at the consumer level.
I fully agree about copyright. As a wild example, unless jk Rowling dies in the next three years, Harry Potter will have US copyright that started in the 20th century, and extends into the 22nd century.