Hello Adept!
There are many examples of cases where a work gains attention
or a resurgence many years later. So.. to assume the initial 5
yrs is when "most of the money is made" is not necessarily
true.
It is absolutely true in the way I meant it, which is that,
for the total value produced by copyrighted works, "most of
the money made from copyrighted things by the original
makers would still be made" with a copyright of 5 years.
One example of what I speak.. Wonkey Donkey - was out of print
for many years, until there was a video of a grandma reading
the book to a kid. The publisher re-released the book and made
a much bigger killing than originally.
This is likely to be true, because it has been reliably
true in the past, and there's no reason to think it'll
change.
It's probably an expectation, but not necessarily always true.
It really depends on marketing.
Obviously, the estate of William Shakespeare would be
making a killing, if copyright were forever, even if most
of the rest of writing from that era would likely never be
worth re-publishing or writing derivative works from.
I'm not talking about pothumus works.
--- OpenXP 5.0.58
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)