When someone challenges you on abolishing copyright by asking "well, do you know a better way to protect artists": don't answer that question.
The problem with the question is that it presupposes that copyright protects artists; something that it demonstrably just doesn't do, propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding.
By answering the question - even by legitimately suggesting protections for artists! - you implicitly accept that copyright is effective at protecting artists, and that sets a bar that you will never clear in the mind of someone defending copyright based on propaganda.
You'll be fighting a ghost, a propagandic framing that is impossible to argue with. You may *intend* to show people better options that actually work, but what people will *hear* is "so you agree that copyright is important".
Instead, deconstruct the premise that copyright protect artists. Only once there's agreement that it doesn't work, is it possible to have a useful conversation about how artists should be protected.
This also applies for a lot of other 'debate topics', by the way.
You will never meet the challenge of providing a better option than the propagandized one, because the propaganda will claim that its option is impossibly good without needing to provide proof, a bar that is impossible to meet by anyone or anything.
