IMO, Copyright should work like this: Automatic full copyright for 14 years from the date of publication. After 14 years, it can be renewed for next 14 years (

IMO, Copyright should work like this: Automatic full copyright for 14 years from the date of publication. After 14 years, it can be renewed for next 14 years (and so on) for a low price of 1$/year. If not renewed, the work becomes automatically available to the public under CC (BY-NC-SA) license. After author's death + 10 years, the work becomes public domain. Those numbers can be debated but the key aspect is that automatic copyright term is limited and explicit renewal is required.