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