[Zenst]

Wasn't it Disney and other media companies that pushed copyright duration towards this 140 year value? I vaguely recall that as a driving factor though maybe wrong and one of those unproven theories or meme'd news of times past.

Be ironic (A children focused company like Disney pushing thru a change in law that actually in the end harms the children as it limits their access for their lifetime into copyright servitude that shows little thought for the children) if was as would sure add a whole new spin to the "think of the children" sound-bite often used to push thru some change in law/rules.

Still, somewhat sad. More so as we build building today too a standard that is not that long-standing in years by design.

[fredoralive]

AFAIK the 140 year is just an arbitary value the British Library have used, it isn't part of copyright law. The UK has used a life + X[1] years system since the 1840s[2]. I guess they assume 140 years is enough to ensure any unknown / untracable authors have been dead for long enough for a work to be near unquestionably in the public domain.

[1] Where X has steadily increased with each copyright law revision.

[2] The US was a weird outlier on this for a long time after most of the world settled on this system.