That's the point of copyright, so that the public eventually benefits from giving you protection for the term of the copyright. It's suppose to still be valid.
It seems a bit short for investment horizons was my point. And also, you’re perhaps thinking of patents, where the public eventually benefits from using an invention - lack of patent would mean more inventions are kept secret.
Copyright is meant to be an incentive for the creation of works that otherwise would not be made. The public benefits by the fact that they’re created. They eventually get to use them too, but it’s less crucial than it is for patents.
> Copyright is meant to be an incentive for the creation of works that otherwise would not be made.
Copyright was there as an incentive for the release of works that would otherwise be kept hidden. As an example, playwrights were very secretive about the plays that they had written. Actors would only be given copies of their own lines, not the lines spoken by anyone else. Full copies of the script were never distributed. As a result, there are a great many works that are simply lost (for example, Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won by Shakespeare). It is this loss of works that copyright is intended to prevent.
With current copyright law, books are being lost by virtue of copyright being too long and covering too much. Books from before copyright became perpetual and recent books are easily available, but very little from in between [1]. If the holders of the copyright do not continue to release a work, it becomes entirely unavailable.
Do you have any source for your claims? The first copyright act in the modern sense was the Statute of Anne in the UK in 1710. The purpose was “for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books”. I included the full preamble below.
As for America, the reasoning on the continental congress on copyright was:
“that nothing is more properly a man's own than the fruit of his study, and that the protection and security of literary property would greatly tend to encourage genius and to promote useful discoveries.”
Again, nothing about releasing works to the public, and everything about promoting more publishing.
“Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; May it please Your Majesty, that it may be Enacted ...”
Hmm, I'm having difficulty finding it. I remember hearing that copyright was largely for preservation in a class, but that would have been over a decade ago. Thank you for pointing out that that portion is unsupported. Until and unless I can find a source for it, I will avoid repeating it.
It's not a point of whether or not it's supposed to be valid, but whether or not the creator can maintain _exclusive_ ownership of the copyrighted material.
If someone wrote a math book 100 years ago, that math book will still be correct today, even if it's in the public domain.
Copyright is meant to be an incentive for the creation of works that otherwise would not be made. The public benefits by the fact that they’re created. They eventually get to use them too, but it’s less crucial than it is for patents.