> That's yet to be determined. Disney is a big influence on the length of US copyright protections. Let's see what happens come 2024
I'm well aware of Disney's role in copyright law.
Disney's opportunity to do extend the term was before Dec. 31, 2018. That's how they extended copyright durations in the past - preventing any new works from entering the public domain at all. It's much harder for them to retroactively amend the copyright term now that some of those works have begun to enter the public domain.
For works released in someones lifetime the effective limit is effectively infinite for ~25% of people based on actuarial tables and assuming the best case of the author published it the year you were born and died that very same year. If the author died when the reader was 13 that's less than 50% who will ever live to that point.
If the author is anonymous(or work for hire) or lives for 20 years after they published the work then it is effectively infinite for ~91% of people assuming the best case.
Say what you want about the old 14+14 system but at least it would have meant that by the time you were a parent you could almost certainly share the works that were influential with you as a kid with your kids. With the current system you have to cross your fingers that it was popular enough to remain in print rather than moving to some limbo of unable to be acquired except 2nd hand or illegally.
I think that is too short for cultural reasons. I think it needs to be at least long enough that something new can come out during a person's childhood and become important to them, and still be under copyright when that person is an adult and has children of their own, so that they can introduce it to their own children. Maybe even long enough that this will work for grandchildren too.
Short terms can make that hard. For example, suppose your childhood thing was "Calvin & Hobbes". With a 14 year term that would be public domain by the time you are an adult, and I have no doubt that advertisers would have immediately conscripted Calvin to push toys and cereals ("It's even better than Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs") and such and saturated children's media with this.
So then you go to share with your kid what was your favorite comic strip when you were a kid, and they have no interest in a strip about the Kellog's and Mattel and such spokes character that they've been bombarded with already for years.
Maybe it is time to consider different terms for different copyright rights? Shorter term for the right to make and distribute literal copies, but longer terms for the right to make and distribute derivative works?
Not being under copyright doesn't stop you from sharing it with your kids. It just makes it less likely to be worth sharing it with your kids, for the reasons in the second and third paragraphs.
