Honestly, I think it depends on the form of the work. * I'd be supportive with 10 years for software, articles (newspaper or scientific journal), and similar t

Honestly, I think it depends on the form of the work. * I'd be supportive with 10 years for software, articles (newspaper or scientific journal), and similar things which go out-of-date quickly. * I would be supportive of 10-20 years for things which make most of the profit in the first few years, such as movies. * I'd be supportive of 20-30 years for music, where it often really does take a while to build up an audience and to cover costs. * I'd be supportive of the lesser of the authors' life and 50 years for things like books. A lot of books take a long time before they begin generating any sort of reasonable returns. * I'd be supportive of longer periods for things which are CC-BY-SA, GPL, and similar licenses, which aren't as burdensome as All Rights Reserved, and where the copyright has a motive beyond profit. The little guy won't be able to afford this for more than 7-11 years. The big guy will be able to do so much longer. I'd actually rather flip it around so the little guy has longer copyright than megacorps.