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You forgot the one option that might be palatable to politicians, thus having a chance of being made into law: "Fixed period (2 or 3 days max), then all proceeds go to the government indefinitely" Finally, an option politicians could get behind!
But my vote went for "Fixed period, extendable a limited number of times". Actually, I wanted "Fixed period, extendable under a very limited number of circumstances after petition from a still-living author", but that choice wasn't available.
My reasons were that public agencies should not have to keep track of who's still living, who's family is being supported, how many times something has been extended, etc. Especially when this tracking could span a timeframe well over 100 years (when you talk about "lifetime plus whatever") Luckily, Einstein didn't copyright "E=mc2" or our world would not be where it is today. I think copyrights and patents are more abusive than helpful these days, patents much more so. Copyrights are generally benign, except when they last so ridiculously long.
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