Of course people benefit from &quot;old&quot; works (otherwise we really be having this conversation) Just look at classical music.  Or shoot even look at Disney and its repurposing old tales.
I think it is also true a lot of people create things BECAUSE there is a copyright and people can make money of it.
The question is, how long do we let them have a copyright? Where would music be today if we couldn&#x27;t build on Beethoven? So obviously infinity isn&#x27;t the answer.
And while some people would create, just because, some people wouldn&#x27;t if the copyright term is too short.
The US Constitution says &quot;a limited time&quot; but what does that mean? I think that any term that is longer than the average lifetime, may as well be infinite.
I can&#x27;t find the article now but there was some research shown that Amazon doesn&#x27;t have many books over 25 years old that are still in copyright. I don&#x27;t know what the right length is, but 25 seems a decent length. It should be 25 years long, no matter if it is for hire or not.