The Twentieth Century has a big hole in the middle, because copyright holders tend to stop publishing what is not profitable enough, but do not release their rights just in case, something could put the book back at the forefront.
In the long run, if Mickey Mouse remains the sole property of Walt Disney, it will disappear with the company, while something entering the public domain has much more chance of being revivified. You just have to look to the Sherlock serie. Again, I don't really care for Mickey Mouse specifically. After all, we can't remember everything and some thing will be forgotten in a century or two. But since the law is the same for everyone, there are plenty of works from the 1940's or 1950's that are languishing unpublished, and could have be made available, especially now with the rise of e-books.
But somehow, I think it is impoverishing what's is added to global culture, and in the long term is self-defeating.
Look at the very bottom of this article, the graph about available books by decade. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25...
The Twentieth Century has a big hole in the middle, because copyright holders tend to stop publishing what is not profitable enough, but do not release their rights just in case, something could put the book back at the forefront.
In the long run, if Mickey Mouse remains the sole property of Walt Disney, it will disappear with the company, while something entering the public domain has much more chance of being revivified. You just have to look to the Sherlock serie. Again, I don't really care for Mickey Mouse specifically. After all, we can't remember everything and some thing will be forgotten in a century or two. But since the law is the same for everyone, there are plenty of works from the 1940's or 1950's that are languishing unpublished, and could have be made available, especially now with the rise of e-books.