A. During the period of copyright, rightsholders are the beneficiaries of rights conferred by the Copyright Act, including the right to receive all compensation from exploitation of the work. The successor beneficiaries (for the period when the work enters the public domain) are the public. This is an identical structure to a trust holding assets for the benefit of primary beneficiaries and successor beneficiaries. In this situation, the passing of rights to our successor beneficiaries is inevitable (not true in all trusts with possible successors).

B. Depending on its terms, a trust may or may not permit depletion or alienation of the trust assets prior to their (potential) passing to successor beneficiaries. In copyright, the terms of the Copyright Act do not permit alienation of the successor’s rights; i.e., the works must pass into the public domain.

C. If the trust assets produced income and the primary beneficiaries were either deceased or could not be located, the trustees or successor beneficiaries (or the state) would apply to the surrogates court for instructions as to what to do with the income — even if trust‚Äôs terms provided for distribution of all income to the primary beneficiaries. If there were no trustees, the Surrogate could appoint one. The best argument and most likely result is that the income would be distributed to the successor beneficiaries of the trust assets in such a way as to most closely fulfill the goals of the trust.

D. In the case before the Court, the successor beneficiary class is the public and the goal of the ‚Äútrust‚Äù (i.e., Copyright Act) is to secure for the public the benefits derived from the author’s labors (including some of the ‚Äúaccess to knowledge‚Äù arguments you make). These benefits normally mean the right to use and exploit the work forever, but this goal can also be furthered (as you say) by use of the unclaimed revenues generated during the first trust (i.e., copyright) period.

E. There is no other entity or group who is a more natural recipient of this “residual” income, nor whose interest is more aligned with the purposes of the “trust” (i.e., Copyright Act) than the public (the sole beneficiary of the “public domain” successor period) and none who is without significant conflict with the interests of the successor beneficiary. It would not be difficult for the Court to hear and evaluate proposals from a trustee (or someone similarly situated, even if not formally appointed as “trustee”) as to how this income should be spent.