Believe it or not, publishers (and galleries) used to make extensive use of the simple expedient of waiting for the creator of a work to die (often leaving the

Believe it or not, publishers (and galleries) used to make extensive use of the simple expedient of waiting for the creator of a work to die (often leaving the family/estate without the means for a burial), which is why the posthumous extension exists at all. Mind you, it has grown from the reasonable protection it once was (something on the order of a dozen or twenty years, depending on the jurisdiction -- enough to inconvenience the vultures or to provide a modest widow's pension) to something utterly ridiculous.