Only with copyright - and only since the extension of the copyright term - do originators get to feed their children and their children's children at, one could argue, the expense of the public. Suw, I think you're pushing here. I'm a distant acquaintance of someone who is on a list as the twelfth richest man in the world: his family owns Levi Jeans. He gets a couple of pennies for each pair of levis that gets sold. Are you suggesting that, on the creator of a company's death that Microsoft, MacDonalds or Levis (for example) should be disbanded or given to the public? (You can if you like; but I think it's a fair analogy.) Also, in the UK copyright law has extended beyond a writer's death since at least the 1911 copyright act (which set the term of copyright as life plus 25 years). It's certainly not a newfangled thing.