Earlier quoted context omitted.
Copyright should be life of the authors full stop. My dad dug ditches for half his life but I don’t get checks in the mail every time water flows through them.
Author’s life is too long. Surely, 20 years is far sufficient to incentivize creating media, although I would err on the side of 10 years. The copyright term is automatically too long if my anyone who would benefit from it entering the public domain is dead.
I think (but could be convinced otherwise) that the term is less important than the restrictions. More liberal definitions of fair use, for example, or clarity on when something is a copy or a derivative (like with people getting sued for vaguely similar songs) would be better. The work is always the authors, I'm less concerned about them retaining some kind of claim on it, especially if they're still actively using it, as long as there's sensible limitations on what rights they can block for others.