If memory serves me, and it’s late so I don’t want to go research right now, original copyright in the US was 20 years + 20 more if the author was still alive.

If memory serves me, and it’s late so I don’t want to go research right now, original copyright in the US was 20 years + 20 more if the author was still alive. You want works to outlast a person in the pathological (edge) case, which the old law supported because, if you’re an author and you release your most recent work a year before you die, you want the spouse you leave behind to profit despite your absence. Imagine being a sick old man that wants to write one last book and some carnivorous movie company refuses to pay you for the movie rights because you’re about to die anyway. That’s not really protecting the author as copyright is intended.