The Significance of January 1, 2070, and Shel Silverstein

Unrelated to the quartets...

I just set a Google Calendar reminder for myself that the works of Shel Silverstein will fall out of copyright after December 31, 2069... when I'm nearly 87 years old!

Actually, I set a "20-years from now" reminder for Dec. 31, 2049, because Google Calendar doesn't go beyond 2050. There's something wrong when even Google can't comprehend the length of a contemporary author's copyright term.

Darn copyright. That is just ridiculous! Is the "Life+70 years" copyright term really necessary to promote creativity?

"Nah, I won't compose. Not unless people have to wait until 2138 to access it." Yeah right.

If it weren't for the unnecessarily long copyright term, I would set to music just about every word Shel Silverstein ever wrote. How's that for stifled creativity?