Common domains, Copyright and Portrait right of deceased personalities

After viewing of the episode of 60 Minutes broadcasted on 20th January, 2011, I think that the practice of taking advantage from deceased personalities is rather unfavorable.
Becoming the agent of deceased personalities and using their works or images in order to get profit is disrespectful to the deceased and highly parasitic because those agents take too much copyright fee and exploited the rights of the heirs.
In addition, copyright and portrait rights may last for several decades. That will let the descendants and agents gain a lot of wealth just by basking on reflected glory of famous deceased people and the social wealth will be more concentrated on those agents and celebrity families.
The costs of using the works of those personalities increase greatly for a long time and hinder the usage of our common culture heritage and art works, especially for the general public.
Therefore, the authorities should consider to strictly enforce the limitation on period of the copyrights and portrait rights of the deceased.
All the copyrights and portrait rights must be terminated 50 years after the decease of the authors or the person of the image. That means copyright and portrait rights can be passed on one generation only.
After that, the images of personalities and our culture wealth can enter the common domain, instead of being monopolized by certain families or foundations.
Such limitation can help the easy access of information and knowledge in order to improve the human culture.

The original text was distributed on 11:13pm, 21 January 2011.