A Boring Dystopia

Suppose I'm playing an 80's RPG on real legal hardware and I'm tired of grinding for XP. I use a cart reader to dump the save file, apply a patch I downloaded from the web and finish the game. I don't even have to access any copyrighted data to do this!

Unless you think data that amounts to

{
  "rtc": 1713006754,
  "savestates": [
    {
      "name": " Red",
      "xp": 1760,
      "pokemon": [
        {
          "species": 115,
          "name": "Fluff",
          "hp": 24
        },
        {
          "species": 92,
          "name": "Bonk",
          "hp": 11
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

(abriged example in JSON-y format) is copyright-protected, that is. And making a personal backup copy of software is legal (in the US) anyway.

Even if we agree with copyright law as is, that's hardly a valid analogy. Save files alone are not a complete game.

Unironically, yes. Copyright law should be completely removed. It was not created to protect artists. It was created to protect shareholder interests.