Well, yeah, that's exactly the point. To stop you from being able to prevent it from being copied!
1. Author publishes a dozen novels over the first 20 years of his/her career. All of them are good, but none of them sell well.
2. Author does not pay the copyright renewal fees because they are too expensive. Anyone can now copy those books and pay nothing.
3. Author's next book is well-received. The author is hailed as a genius and there is suddenly a ton of interest in the author's earlier works.
4. Everyone but the author makes money on the author's older works.
Edit: The point here is that when a work is successful, which is rare, it is unfair for everyone other than the author, who is most responsible for the work, to profit from it.
Under the proposed system, he'd also be more likely to be encouraged to continue creating new works, rather than just retiring because of the one successful book.
They would have long given up, if it was money.
For me, the value of the books is the value they provide to their readers, not the money they provide to the author. We want author to be able to get money because it will incentivize them to write. I don't think it's realistic to think any writer will not write because his work may become famous only after he has published some books and therefore won't be as profitable as some other copyright scenario. That is just not how people think.
I know that some people see copyright as some kind of justice system to ensure creators get their due. I think that view in general leads to copyright maximalism, and is not a good place to start from when discussing the value of copyright
(Edit: Not just republishers of the original work, but also those making derivatives like translations, sequels, or movie/TV adaptations.)
How do the publishers benefit from a work that enters the public domain? They have no more right to use the work than anyone else. I think the margins for publishers would be very low after a work enters the public domain.
Since that new novel would be granted an exclusive monopoly period, and the author now has significant notoriety.
So, since the explicit goal of the system is to incentivize _new_ works, and this system incentivizes _new_ works in that scenario, it seems like an explicit success of the system, rather than a problematic example.
In the current scenario, at step 4. the author can simply retire on the success of those previous books. That _fails_ to incentivize new works. So I'd argue my proposal works _better_ at the goals of copyright in this scenario than the current system.
Also, copyright isn’t just the original work, it’s also derivatives like sequels, translations, and movie adaptations. Should all of them make money while the author and his family get nothing?
In the real world, limiting copyright like you suggest is a non-starter.
any member of the family could also contribute to society by writing new works
remember the goal: to promote new works; not to make the author money, or their family money, or their family's descendants money; and not to enrich or prevent the enriching of any given publisher
allowing the author and family to milk old work in perpetuity, whether independently or through a publisher, would seem to incentivize the opposite of that
The purpose of copyright is to encourage people to write or produce creative works, even when the reality is that most works will not be successful in any way. If you take away the possibility of reward for the few works that are successful, then that will result in fewer works being produced.
if there was data that shows copyrighted works usually earn nothing the first 5 years, and earn significant value after that, or even that annual earnings from copyrighted works usually increase after 5 years, the argument against the proposed reform would be more convincing,
but in any case, the purpose of copyright is to encourage new works, not allow authors to perpetually cash in on old ones like a lottery ticket instead
In that scenario it doesn't sound like there's a lot we can do to encourage the author to create new works. Which is, again, the explicit and primary goal of copyright law and jurisprudence.
Firstly, why would the author ever hand over their book to such a publisher?
Secondly, why wouldn't the author have a contract with their publisher guaranteeing terms?
Thirdly, surely the publisher is incentivised to make as many sales as possible in the 5 years before the copyright expires, when other publishers can then sell copies (assuming it's been successful enough to make it worthwhile).
(if the answer is that yes they would, it implies that it's profitable to publish without copyright, and then why do we even have copyright?)