Whether something can be inherited by your children is an intrinsic part of its value and the incentives of the producers. Say you have an elderly novelist tha

Whether something can be inherited by your children is an intrinsic part of its value and the incentives of the producers. Say you have an elderly novelist that is concerned for his wife's income after his death, and is pondering whether to finish and release a draft novel. If that copyright couldn't be inherited by his wife, his incentive would be to find some other money-making activity rather than finish the novel. I also think that artistic works should have a finite time limit (rather than author's life + x), but I think on the order of about 40-50 years. OTOH, a patent term of 20 years seems to work really well.