Copyright laws are designed to allow the Creator to financially benefit
from their work. I'm not sure how you can ethically separate a songwriter
from his royalties for any length of time. Its like finding a gold mine
and only benefitting for 7 years; after which you turn it over for "public
use". You found the gold. You keep it. Period.

Royalty fees are trivial. Like 10 cents per sale on a song.

http://moneywisdom-gold.blogspot.com