Robert and Ginny Heinlein were in a situation similar to this. They were
very much a Mom & Pop cottage industry. At the time of Robert's death in
1988, they were worth about 6 million dollars. At the time of her death in
2003, she had upped that to about 10 million. They had no biological heirs
and wanted their lifetime's work to be used to pay their debt of gratitude
forward. They planned for the long haul. Ginny gave away the entire 10
million, with some going to institutions and the rest to set up foundations
to carry through and implement her's and Robert's desire. In order to
facilitate that, Ginny turned the copyrights that were under her control
over to two foundations. She very much wanted the income from those
copyrights to continue, and to be used for the benefit of others. Placing
those copyrights into the public domain would not serve her goals and would
not benefit humanity. I would imagine that to be true of many other artists
as well. Ten years is rediculous. Seventy years is too short to be
reasonable.
JimC
----- Original Message -----
Subject: Re: SV: Knight and Public Domain
"No one wants to rip off his heirs but profiting from
something you didn't help create 70 plus years after
the death of he who did create it is ridiculously
excessive. Ten years would be reasonable. "