Except that all works should be able to be built upon. Sherlock Holmes and Bilbo Baggins, Mickey Mouse and The Terminator, Atticus Finch and Charlie Bucket, every one is a cultural idea.

It isn't just abandoned works. All cultural works should eventually be available to build upon.

For the sake of a handful of older profitable works, all works will forever be held back from the public domain. Better that you concede Mickey Mouse and let the rest benefit society as public works.

I agree, but my proposal is one that is much more likely to get through than the all-or-nothing approach.

And yet there are multiple literary, movie and TV adaptations of all of those characters you mentioned that were not created by their original authors. Not to mention the tons and tons of crappy fanfic that nobody reads (except me, apparently).

Also, let's not justify the desire for having things for free by calling somebody's artistic labor a "cultural idea" and implying it should be made available for free. If you find value in something, pay for it as the creators wish. If you wish to build on top of it, license it.

How far back does it go, and how far forward to creators' monopolies last? Should a license fee be paid whenever somebody references War of the Worlds? How about Shakespeare?

Small-budget adaptations should be possible, as well as large-budget.

You don't even need an annual fee. Even a one-time fee is sufficient deterrent to blanket extension of copyright.

The old 56-year copyright term used to be split into two 28-year periods. You basically paid a one-time fee: half at the original registration, then half (adjusted for inflation) at renewal. If you didn't renew, then you got to pay half the fee for half the copyright term.

Only 15% of copyrights on books, periodicals, and music were ever renewed. The renewal rates were higher for maps (40%) and motion pictures (50%).

Thus, commercially-significant work was protected. However, the vast majority of work (85% of books!) only had an ephemeral cultural value, so the authors chose to take the fee discount and allow their works to enter the public domain.

Source: Divide 1977 renewals by 1950 registrations for each category. This is off-by-one (27 years instead of 28) because 1949 and 1978 tabulations aren't as easy to access. That's why I give round numbers.

Yes, and the fee should double for each added year.

Yes this is a good suggestion, but haven't other people previous proposed this?

I totally agree with that too.