According to official SACEM statistics, 66% of their registered artists (who pay membership dues) don't receive a single cent over an entire year. The Cour des Comptes (highest french authority for public spending) has published detailed analysis about the copyright mafia and how their 6-digit salaries really don't help artists make a living.
How to make a living is an issue in all of society, not just for artists. We should address this problem globally by making sure wealth is redistributed according to everyone's needs.
An artist doesn't need the dole, they can get a job and make art on their own time.
There are two types of art, one customers call art when buying it. The other that an artist calls art when lamenting that people won't buy it.
Many people would say that it already is.
Which means it's somewhat out of balance for an IP protection scheme to exist that allows an entity to perform/create a work of art once and then sit back and collect on it for the next 150+ years.
Work once, get paid once. Musician? Venue commissions you, you get paid. Visual artist? Someone commissions you, you get paid.
Anything else is a benefit to one person or company at the expense of everyone else. A limited such benefit, per the original idea of copyright, is fine if society wants to encourage the arts. At what point is society oversaturated with "creatives" though?
I think many novelists, filmmakers, photographers and songwriters would disagree. Piracy can affect their ability to earn a living from their work. Few regular people care about the "lineage" of their ebooks, digital photos, audio streams, video files, or mp3s as long as it's convenient and allows them to enjoy the artist's work.