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I've always wondered what happens to all the art assets; you'd think there would be just tons of 3d models from defunct games that could all go to some open repository.

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In the US, copyright lasts 70 years after the death of the creator, even if the copyright holder doesn't actively do anything with the IP.

Those art assets probably just languish on some backup server. If they're not just completely lost.

Likely works for hire so I guess that's 95 years. I assume for a lot of companies they go thru some liquidation and hopefully aren't just wasted.

Isn't it 95 years now?

WTF? And just when I thought it couldn't get any crazier.

You're thinking of works made for hire or anonymous/pseudonymous works, which is the lesser of 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf

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