|
Sorry I passed on the poll.
I say keep it simple. Forget variables like date of death or optional renewals. Make it publication date plus some period, say 20 years. That way you only need to know one thing, the publication date, to figure the public domain date and it's consistent for every book. You can quibble on the period (10? 20? 30? years) but choose a period that covers most of the profit for most books and call it a day. Sure there will be exceptions where a book becomes popular after the period or continues to be popular after but those will be rare cases that will have little to no effect on motivating authors.
|