What would happen if copyright were extended (almost) indefinitely?

Question

In the past, copyright terms have been repeatedly extended, and some people have called for extensions that would effectively make copyright eternal, such as terms of 10.000 years or "forever minus one day".

If a law were passed today in the United States extending copyright from its current term of "life of the author + 70 years" to "life of the author + 10.000 years", what exactly would happen? In particular:

• Would, say, Shakespeare's works (published before the introduction of copyright) leave the public domain?
• Would works previously under copyright whose original copyright term had already expired gain renewed copyright?
• If the answer to the second question is yes, what would happen to derivative works of those works?

Answer 1

See Golan v. Holder 565 U. S. ____ (2012).

The question was whether Congress could pass a law that caused works in the public domain to regain copyright.

The Supreme Court held that:

The text of the Copyright Clause does not exclude application of copyright protection to works in the public domain.

...

Historical practice corroborates the Court’s reading of the Copyright Clause to permit the protection of previously unprotected works.

So, yes, works can come out of public domain and into Copyright protection.

What about people who had been relying on the works not having copyright (i.e. people who had created derivative works, etc.)? That depends on how Congress intends the hypothetical law to apply to them. In the law in question in Golan v. Holder, Congress planned ahead for this, and included provisions for it in the law (quoting from Golan v. Holder):

Reliance parties may continue to exploit a restored work until the owner of the restored copyright gives notice of intent to enforce—either by filing with the U. S. Copyright Office within two years of restoration, or by actually notifying the reliance party. After that, reliance parties may continue to exploit existing copies for a grace period of one year. Finally, anyone who, before the URAA’s enactment, created a “derivative work” based on a restored work may indefinitely exploit the derivation upon payment to the copyright holder of “reasonable compensation,” to be set by a district judge if the parties cannot agree.

Last, could Congress extend copyright for 10,000 years? In principle, the Supreme Court has not said anything against this, but they have indicated that there is some line beyond which a copyright term would no longer be considered a "limited time" as required by the Constitution.

In Golan v. Holder they mention in passing hypothetical successive re-applications of Copyright to a work after it expires, calling it "legislative misbehavior":

the hypothetical legislative misbehavior petitioners posit is far afield from the case before us.

And in Eldred v. Ashcroft, they mention in passing hypothetical unlimited successive extensions of copyright, each of limited time, again calling that "legislative misbehavior":

Concerning petitioners' assertion that Congress could evade the limitation on its authority by stringing together an unlimited number of "limited Times," the court stated that such legislative misbehavior clearly was not before it.

I could imagine a court holding that the "limited times" clause in the Constitution does not permit Congress to extend copyright for 10,000 years, which is longer than the existence of the U.S. or any countries or even civilizations that the founders were aware of at the time of the Constitution's writing.

Answer 2

First, this is a pretty broad question, but I will try to answer.

Briefly (from the wiki page):

All copyrightable works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain;[18] works created before 1978 but not published until recently may be protected until 2047.[19] For works that received their copyright before 1978, a renewal had to be filed in the work's 28th year with the Copyright Office for its term of protection to be extended. The need for renewal was eliminated by the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992, but works that had already entered the public domain by non-renewal did not regain copyright protection. Therefore, works published before 1964 that were not renewed are in the public domain.

Under very rare circumstances, one may regain copyright protection. However,

a reliance party may continue to exploit that derivative work for the duration of the restored copyright if the reliance party pays to the owner of the restored copyright reasonable compensation for conduct which would be subject to a remedy for infringement but for the provisions of this paragraph.

... as determined by a US District Court.

With all that being said, there would be no change in the status of Shakespeare's works. (This would be more subject to the TRIPS than US law since Shakespeare is not from the US.)

Would works that lost copyright protection regain it? "Probably" Not. Your question asks for speculation about how the legislatures would change copyright law. If all that was changed was the length of the copyright, then no, they would not gain protection. However, if you can get congress to extend the copyright for 10k years, you can probably get them to allow owners to regain a lost copyright.

Derivative works have their own copyright on materials not subject to the copyright of the main material.