The life + x years (with x a significant number) is a European thing and has a different origin than copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights

The life + x years (with x a significant number) is a European thing and has a different origin than copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights Since the Berne Convention mandates life + 50 for a large class of publications, it's hard to go below that (both for the EU and the US)