Re: For those who are unable to figure it out...
Nope. Copyrights (and inventions) are granted "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". There is no progress if you promise to pay an artist/inventor for the rest of eternity just to sit on their ass and live off past efforts.
Copyright terms give a creation some value based on the future stream of income from that work. Either the artist can collect that income stream or a publisher can buy the rights to it for a lump sum. That value or lump sum can easily be calculated by any Econ 101 student with a financial calculator app. Without copyright protection, that lump sum, or present value at the time of a work's creation would be zero. Because there would be no future income stream. On the other hand, on the day of creation, the present value of an income stream far in the future falls to near zero. So, as an artist, it would make no difference if the term were 14 years, 20 years, 75 years, etc.
Now here's the thing: On the day after creation, the artist is no longer an artist. They are now an investor with an asset in hand. They can keep it and it's future cash flow. Or sell it for a lump sum. But the "Progress of Science and the Useful Arts" has ceased. At least as far as that work is concerned. Want more money? Write another novel or draw another mouse.
The problem in Congress is that the studios are sitting on portfolios of works soon to reach a point where their income flow hits zero. And it benefits them to push that income horizon out some number of years so as to boost the portfolio's present value. But the Copyright Clause wasn't written to protect the assets of investors. Even if those investors happen to be the writer or his/her heirs who hung on to the publishing rights.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
