It should be looked form the frame of how long is appropriate to promote the creation of the arts etc. Realistically no author is thinking I won't create this art unless I get lifetime + 70.
I would think 50 years total is a much more reasonable figure.
Corporations can't wait even 20 years because tastes change. There's not much mainstream demand for Sum 41 anymore. Also corporations can't have much margin on public domain material; there's too much competition if anyone can publish it, and for digital creations they'd be competing with legal p2p sharing. So they need that exclusivity.
Perhaps not for Sum 41. But how about Beatles? Elvis? Michael Jackson? Metallica?
I don't know if people will still be listening to Swift and Eilish in 50 years from now, but something tells me that Beatles, Iron Maiden, Michael Jackson, Sinatra, will echo for eons..
This has the nice side effect of wildly-successful works disproportionately funding the copyright offices, thus enabling theoretically lower fees for newcomers.
Sure, but should a corporation continue to make huge profits from these artist who will be long dead?
Not all copyright is owned or even licensed to organisations.
It really is a bad feel if you created something, then 20 years later someone releases the exact thing you created and make millions and you don't get a cent of that money.
Also many people after retirement age probably need the income from royalties a little bit more than when they were in their prime, not less.
That isn't what the entire comment thread is discussing though so I misinterpreted your comment. Apologies
Corporations create the taste. They can even wait hundreds of years. Just look at how many old stories are remade today. Unless there is something extraordinary, hyped for longer than a summer, they will wait all they want.
I agree, I don't see how 20 years isn't long enough from that pov.
What company is going to wait 20 years before signing a book deal, film deal, etc.
Further. This still ignores the fact that there's value to having the original creator attached. You don't want the author of the book trashing your new film, you want them promoting it.