Termination of copyright transfers It would be good to see something about the copyright transfer termination sections of this act That s the right of an author or their heirs to essentially reclaim a copyright under certain circumstances even if they ve signed it away in perpetuity The Superman article alludes to the termination rights at 56 years for older works and there are beginning to be news articles about the termination rights at 35 years for works published on or after Jan 1 1978 since they ll come due in 2013