If the Disney people had their way we'd still be paying royalty fees to the descendants of the inventor of the wheel.
Well, the original term was for 14 years, and at the discretion of the copyright holder, they could extend it to another 14 for a total of 28 years.
If the Disney people had their way we'd still be paying royalty fees to the descendants of the inventor of the wheel.
Well now, that really depends upon what is good for Disney. A really good example of that is back in '67 when they released their version of Kipling's Jungle Book. They actually started work on the cartoon while the book was still under copyright, but released it the same year the copyright expired so they didn't have to pay royalties. If I recall the numbers correctly if copyright law had been the same back then as it is now, they wouldn't have been able to release that cartoon until 2016 without paying royalties to the Kipling estate.
So you see, when it is in Disney's interest, the Public Domain is a good thing. When it is not, it is evil and communistic.