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I think the reason it's fair to expect works to eventually revert to the public domain is because authors don't create their works strictly from their own selves but they are influenced by and borrow from, a common pool of culture, therefore one of the rationales behind the public domain is that eventually their work returns to that common pool so others can draw from it just as they drew from the work of others who came before. For example, do you think JK Rowling was the first to come up with a story about a young boy who discovers a secret world, battles a nefarious bad guy and has a transformative journey? Of course not. The quest story is as old as stories themselves. Now, she does deserve the opportunity to profit from her particular interpretation and her own creative labours. But eventually, it should go back into the same pool of culture that she herself drew from when she created it.
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