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It seems logical, at least in my way of thinking.
Many books from before 1920 or so that are still read, are classics. The mediocre and crap stuff from that time has largely disappeared, as nobody remembers it. Printing books cost money, and having to pay royalties to authors makes books more expensive.
The result is that the books of before 1920 will be guaranteed to sell (classics), and they are cheaper to print than books that still have copyright (no royalties).
The new books, after 2000 and later, are still new. They sell because of that. So if you print and sell mostly the best sellers, then you can ask more money, offsetting the royalties. These books make the bulk of the money, I think.
The books in between have two problems:
a. Only very few books have already attained the "Classic" status.
b. They still require royalties to be paid.
Therefore, it's not certain that reprinting will generate any sales (except for the exception that's already a classic), and they are more expensive to produce than the older books because of the royalties. Therefore, these books won't be printed or converted into ebooks, until they lose their copyright and become cheaper and some of them become classics.
I may be wrong, but for me, it seems logical.
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