Copyright really needs to be harmonised internationally. Take Sherlock Holmes for example:
- US: most of Sherlock Holmes has been public domain for years, but everything create in the 1920s only entered public domain on January 1st, 2023, because at the time, copyright was calculated on time since publication
- UK, France, Germany: Sherlock Holmes has been public domain since 2000, because copyright lasts 70 years after the author's death
- New Zealand, Hong Kong, UAE: Sherlock Holmes has been public domain since 1980 (50 years after death)
Now personally, I think all of those are too long, nobody needs to hog an artwork they didn't create for 50 or 70 years. The Berne Convention, signed by most of the world, demands 50 years after death but unfortunately lets member states extend that period; imo it should be capped at 50 years after death worldwide.
In theory, someone in New Zealand or the UAE could have published their own Sherlock Holmes novel in 1981. In practice, unless they could guarantee it wasn't read outside of those countries, they would have been sued to death by the lecherous cancer that is the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate.
