Just spitballing an idea here, and acknowledging it depends on specifics, but would you consider the following a viable scheme?
After 70 years, but still within Life+25, copyright reverts to the original creator/estate, but with (reasonable) compulsory licensing.

There are parallels, but it is more complex. A _book_ is akin to a house, whereas a _story_ is akin to blueprints. Copyright protects the later two (so the architect could sue if the plans are duplicated), but not the former two (an author gets nothing for the resale of a signed, rare 1st edition).

According to MIT's Puzzle Hunt, the answer was 'because the asphalt would chafe'

(90 years from Publication, or 120 years from Creation -- whichever is less. Only matters in rare case there is a 30+ year delay, I assume that is more common for pseudonymous published works than work-for-hire/Corporate IP, but they use the same standards. And assumes the US. </pedantic>)

That's fair. My premise wasn't 'the response was appropriate;' if that wasn't clear, I apologize to @neilhimself.neilgaiman.com.

It was the response wasn't _surprising_.

It feels like some I respected posted a photo of a BlueLM sign. He wanted a conversation, but w/o context, I grok getting mad.

For what it is worth, I was intending to reference Doyle and Lovecraft, and to a lesser extent, Shakespeare. I wanted to leave religion/mythology-as-IP out of it.

Sure; but it implies a desire to spread the concept to a wider audience & as you rightly point out, this isn't twitter -- adding context when reposting an confrontational message isn't a high bar and would encourage useful discussion rather than knee-jerk reactions.

(In other news, I don't think i know how to thread things on here AzureCeiling)

Personally, I'm in favor of something like:
Max (in all circumstances) publication +75
Single Creator: Life +25
Group Creator: Earliest Death +50, Last Death +25
For Hire, Pseudonymous: Earliest of Creation +75, Publication +60
Creators assigned to corporate entities change to 'for hire' dates. 5/5

(And your later comment of Life+25 is missing one of the big issues of work-for-hire/pseudonymous works, with a long, static copyright period -- in the US, lesser of 95 from pub/120 from creation; it also doesn't address the potential life-extending technologies on the horizon.) 4/?

Your post set up a straw man argument and vehemently attacked it, without addressing any of the wider scope or actual issues involved in the reform movement.

Quoting the post, without commenting on a more reasonable option, was inviting an equally brisk, simplistic response.
3/?

Under US Copyright law, things created along with Sherlock Holmes could only have fully entered public domain last year (Shoscombe was published 1927; for hire works are pub+95).

I assume they exist, but no one I know (or respect) who wants copyright reform wants to eliminate it. 2/?

Its been a while since I read them, but my recollection is at least some elements of _Book IV: Road to Nowhere_ seem a bit heavy for 8 years old.