>Yes, because people did when copyright terms were shorter than that, and virtually all of the income from most things subject to copyright is derived in the first decade or so.
Yes the terms were shorter, but people were also not investing $200M+ per film. Now you are probably right that any given work, including $200M+ films, are likely to derive all income in the first decade, but the investment for such projects would not happen if they lost protection after a decade and people could simply start reproducing 1 to 1 copies at that point.
Yes the terms were shorter, but people were also not investing $200M+ per film. Now you are probably right that any given work, including $200M+ films, are likely to derive all income in the first decade, but the investment for such projects would not happen if they lost protection after a decade and people could simply start reproducing 1 to 1 copies at that point.