Well yeah, it is currently. But not if the work becomes PD when you die, as OP is suggesting.
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So you're an author and the only thing between a billion dollar studio and a royalty-free production of your work (that you have no creative input into) is your own death. And you'd feel fine and safe with that because "murder is illegal"?
It's hard to get away unnoticed with producing a work that infringes copyright, since they tend to have to be released to the public, and from a known source. Getting away with murder is a cinch in comparison.
If it was the day after they died, mightn't that have an unintended consequence of making it more likely that copyright holders would start "falling out of windows" just when it's convenient for producers and AI crooks to snaffle up their content, royalty-free?
Red Dwarf - Psirens (1993)
As KRYTEN and LISTER head for the cockpit, the airlock monitor fizzes on again and a SECOND LISTER appears on the screen.
LISTER 2: What the hell are you doing taking off when I'm still outside? Let me in.
KRYTEN double-takes between the LISTER inside and the LISTER on the monitor.
KRYTEN: I'm afraid, sir, you're already here.
RIMMER steps down from the cockpit.
LISTER 1: He's a Psiren -- don't let him in. LISTER 2: For god's sake -- I can't hang on any longer. He's the Psiren. Let me in! RIMMER: What do we do? KRYTEN: there's no way to tell which is which. We have to let him in. RIMMER: That means we'll definitely have one Psiren on board. A brain- sucking psychotic temporal lobe slurper. KRYTEN: There's a fifty per cent chance we have one on board already. We can't risk killing the real Lister. I'm letting him in.
https://youtu.be/KW80Yjib7RA