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My personal take on it is that at least 99% of any year's printed works achieve oblivion within a decade or two of publication. All permanent copyright would do is ensure that only a couple books from any given year will remain in print, the rest will be lost permanently. At least with public domain, there's a chance some of these works will be rediscovered by more than one or two individuals browsing a library or used book store. I think it's dumb to be concerned about the property rights of a few heirs several generations removed from the author, especially when limited term copyright and public domain has been firmly established for centuries.
It could be that leebase is really making the case for permanent copyright not for individual authors, but creative works so massive that it requires a corporation to make them. Again, these corporations make these works with the understanding that they have an extremely lengthy time period in which to make money from their work. Even then, there's no reason to expect that if they're making money on the work when the copyright expires that they'll totally stop making money on it. True, they may be one of many sources for it, but there will always be ways for them to convince buyers that it's worth it to buy the original.
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