A lot of things take more than 5 years to create. If save all your garbage and find the notes from your rough draft that you started more than 5 years ago does that mean your work is not copyright, merrily a derivative work? Some authors write a novel in 6 weeks, but others take years to polish it.
>Some authors write a novel in 6 weeks, but others take years to polish it.
I think 5 years might be too short for a novel, but regardless, the lesson here is: don't publish your work until it's ready. Copyright protection should start when it's published, not when the first word was typed.
>If save all your garbage and find the notes from your rough draft that you started more than 5 years ago
Maybe there should be a provision about rooting through someone's trash? This seems a rather rare edge case.
