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Originally Posted by Ekaros
Perpetual right is wrong. And life+70 or even +50 is also too long...
I would say there is happy medium between different options. Life or minimum of 25 years would probably work for private owners for literature, I believe rights for other media should be 10-40 years, software at low end and movies/music at high end.
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I have to say I personally prefer avoiding any life dependent copyright laws; then before you can be sure a work is in the public domain you have to make sure the author is dead (not always easy when we are talking about a book written 50 ago by an author who never wrote anything else). Also, a different set of rules apply if the copyright was created by a corporation (even if the book has a named author!)
Personally I think the whole thing would be easier for all concerned if a fixed term was established. That way anyone can easily determine if a book is still in copyright. Even a fixed term of 100 years would be better than the current system. Personally though I think 25 years should be sufficient. If you haven't made a decent profit on a work within 25 years, you likely are not going to in the next 25 years. If you have, then you have been amply rewarded for your efforts.
For unpublished works, it is a little bit more tricky. I would probably give the estate some reasonable period to discover the works and register them. Oh right and the term starts 25 years from the date of publication or registration, whichever comes first (to prevent people from sitting on a copyrighted book).
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Bill