The current lifetime + 70 years is overkill. Releasing one's works under CC or GFDL is surely good, CC-0/PD is better, but it doesn't always practical/persuasiv

The current lifetime + 70 years is overkill. Releasing one's works under CC or GFDL is surely good, CC-0/PD is better, but it doesn't always practical/persuasive to everyone/everything. And it requires personal evaluations and actions. Perhaps we also need a Voluntary Copyright Sunset Movement. It can persuade many people to waive their copyright earlier without author's own actions after its publication: > Copyright Sunset License > All Rights Reserved, (C) 2019 John Doe > An irrevocable, unconditional license is hereby granted: XX years after the initial publication of the first revision, the Work is automatically made available under the terms and conditions of CC-0. See CC-0. (another variation can be CC-BY v4) It can be applied to the majority of someone's works without major considerations. If you are just writing a random essay or taking a random photo, it's unlikely you still care after, let's say, 20 years. But meanwhile, you may still want to retain your copyright (and possibly, release it under a free/non-commercial/proprietary license before it expires, or upload it to your blog, forget it and do nothing), but no matter what you do, the copyright sunsets automatically some years later, long before the legal validity. And I think it can be a fairly influential movement and can persuade many authors to join: do you really need/want to lock a piece of your random work for your entire lifetime + 70 years? If the work is special, you may want to do so, but more likely not, can you waive your copyright earlier to benefit the public? If so, use this license to publish your work. The problem of this movement is, of course, nothing would happen during the first 20-40 years, making the movement be perceived as useless, and difficult to gain support. Meanwhile, the movement would also fail to solve any of the changing landscape of copyright issues developed during these years. Who knows what the world we're living is going to be in 40 years, and there's risk of our efforts becoming irrelevant. But I think it's still a big positive move. We can also encourage short expiry for things you don't care about, such as blog posts or small programs: 5-10 years may be enough.