IMO, I think life + 20 is reasonable. To avoid upsetting company's like Disney a fee per work to preserve valuable copyright seems reasonable. I would say 10k / year + 5% of the gross sales would be reasonable. That way you promote new works, but don't need to fight corporations that want copy write to last until the end of time. It's also a good divider between works that people are actually interested in preserving from works that generate little income.

I think "life" is sufficient. With that, someone can capitalize on their work for their entire career. Anything past death simply serves to allow offspring to ride the laurels of their parents.

As for corporations, I'd be open to a pay-as-you-go system like you propose, only I'd make the payment grow at some exponential percentage. Say the first year costs $1 and the fee grows by 25% a year. Adjusted for 3% inflation, the fees would be something like:

  Year  Fee/yr
  1     $1
  10    $5.71
  25    $104.17
  50    $13,169
  100   $210 million
  150   $3.36 trillion

This would put a natural limit on corporate copyright, due to their willingness to pay. With this system, Disney would pay $5,659,799 this year for the Mickey Mouse copyright (assuming it started at 10 cents in 1928, which is assuming 3% inflation backwards from now). By 2033 this would be a billion dollars a year... by 2064 a trillion. (Again, at 3% inflation, a trillion dollars in 2064 is like $200 billion today).

lol what if someone commits murder for the sake of obtaining a copyright?

that's not actually that far-fetched if you think about it. well...maybe. big evil corporations are, after all, the stuff of movies haha