I agree, with the caveat that a literary work can be seen as an asset that has value which pays out over time. It takes a large investment upfront and then pays out slowly.

So having a limited ability to pass on that asset if you die prematurely seems only fair—you'd have the same option if you were building something physical—but we shouldn't use inheritance as an argument for longer copyright. The question of how long someone should be allowed to earn money from a work should be orthogonal from the question of whether that right to earn money should be inheritable.

This is the flaw in life plus 70—it assumes that copyright should last indefinitely during one's lifetime and then provide for successors. I'd rather see a flat rate for how long we're comfortable locking up a work in copyright, successors or otherwise.

> It takes a large investment upfront and then pays out slowly

Does it really? Sure, timeless classics pay out over a long period of time but they are by far the exception. I'll wager that the vast majority of copyrighted works make the vast majority of their money in the first decade. So why do we need essentially perpetual copyright? (Essentially perpetual because almost none of the works created in my lifetime will ever pass out of copyright before I die)

> the vast majority of their money in the first decade. So why do we need essentially perpetual copyright?

I agree. I think OP's proposal of a fixed term of 25 years is more than reasonable. All I'm saying is that it should be inheritable and not based on when the author dies.

I don't see why written things can't be an asset while other creations can. It just discriminates against writers.

We have property rights for physical objects because physical objects are scarce. Only a limited number of people can use any given object and we need some way of deciding who gets to use it.

On the other hand copies of writing are not scarce. We can give copies to everyone who wants one for practically free. Property rights for copies of writing are therefore artificial. Creating artificial scarcity where none exists has real costs that in many cases outweigh the benefits.

All of us working in development of any kind create value well into the future with our work. The only question is whether you monetize immediately with wages or with ownership