As an author who depends on royalties as part of my income I am coming
more to the opinion that copyright should not be reformed, it should
be abolished entirely for the sake of humanity. I'd gladly give up
what I make to live in a better world for my children. But then I have
to remind myself, this isn't about us creative types. It never was.
If you compare the success of cross border attempts to harmonise copyright and environmental, human rights or consumer protections laws it feels like the changes that make rich people slightly richer and poor people slightly poorer do much better than the ones that make rich people slightly poorer and poor people slightly richer.
Lost for a generation? No. They're still available to anyone who is willing to pay the writer/artist/creator. Those who want to make copies without sharing anything with the original artist or his/her estate, though, will have to wait. That's not the same thing as being lost.
The title says their entry to the public domain has been lost, not the works themselves.
> Those who want to make copies without sharing anything with the original artist or his/her estate
You can drop "original artist" from that sentence, since the copyright term has been extended from life + 50 years to life + 70 years. Even under the original term, not only would the authors be dead, there is a good chance their children and even some of their grandchildren would be dead.
The original artist who, by the way, enjoyed a world where public domain works were far more recent.
