I quite like the formulation in the American Constitution:

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

The good parts of this is that it has a purpose (which is NOT profits), and that the exclusivity should be time-limited.

I don't see how the purpose is not profit. Profit is simply a unit of measure, one that measures the progress in delivering useful value to society. Which is exactly what the statement purports is the function of said formulation. Profit would merely measure the successfulness of a pursuit.

Being a slumlord seems to be a profitable enterprise that provides nothing useful to society, instead it just leaches off of people who are actually doing useful things for society.

I am not even a tiny bit convinced that Copyright is helping us reach that goal. I can, however, find a dozen ways it is doing the opposite.

Without copyright you probably wouldn't have an IP behemoth Disney, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't have animated features. I'm not sure the world would be worse off.

Maybe copyright should go away quicker if their copyrights are transferred to a company or another person.