Of course your point just begs the question: why do we pay “stars” the exorbitant salaries we do? Especially compared to, say, teachers.

And then there’s the idea of, is it “right” for someone to continue making money doing *nothing* more? How many, oh, say, teachers, get “royalties” from the students they educated? Or auto-plant workers from the cars they built?

If I were spending that much money on something, I would want more than 25 years.

Even on the smaller scale, a lot of musicians retire on the royalties from hits they wrote when they were young. A 25 year term takes away that potential income stream for a lot of artists.

While I agree that lifetime plus 90 is ridiculous, 28 years is pretty short in the grand scheme of things. I personally like 50 years, that way it allows a creator (or her bankroller) to profit from her work for essentially two generations and allows the third to use that work freely.

Another option would be a compulsory license trigger at 28 years for certain types of work (musical compositions already have this immediately upon original release). This would continue to provide income for the creators, but still make the work available for various interpretations.

Walt Disney would be ashamed of what his company became. Would he? Food for thought.

After googling it, yup:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/2006/11/only_if_the_word_nobrainer_app.html