If he can give his house, his car, his money, etc. to his children, I don't see why he can't give them his copyright. It would be very unfortunate if an author

If he can give his house, his car, his money, etc. to his children, I don't see why he can't give them his copyright. It would be very unfortunate if an author worked for 10 years (not unreasonable) on a fantastic novel, published it, it became a bestseller, and then he died one week later, and it instantly became public domain. The publishing company that gave him an advance and spent money on marketing the book would lose money (and so they would probably never sign a deal with an old man or someone with bad health again), and the author's children would not benefit from their parent's 10 years of work. If his children died then 1 month later, surely their children (the author's grandchildren) should be able to benefit. It seems that length of time is more relevant than number of generations.