How Copyright Law Protects an Artist’s Work After Death

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Catherine O’Hara died on January 30, 2026, at age 71. Her estate is now worth approximately $10 million. Under current federal copyright law, her creative output remains protected until 2096—seventy years after her death.

This isn’t unique to her. It’s how copyright functions in America now, after decades of extensions pushed by entertainment companies and heirs’ advocates. The question is whether this serves anyone except the people collecting checks—and whether the public ever gets its cultural inheritance back.

Studios Own Most of What You Remember

She probably didn’t own the copyright to her most famous performances. Not “Home Alone.” Not “Beetlejuice.” Not even Moira Rose in “Schitt’s Creek.”

When an actor performs for a studio, the studio owns what they create. Under the work-for-hire doctrine, the studio owns the copyright from the moment of creation. 20th Century Fox owns Kate McCallister. Warner Bros. owns her Beetlejuice performance. The production companies behind “Schitt’s Creek” own Moira Rose.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Congress rewrote copyright law. Studios argued that letting individual performers retain rights would split ownership among multiple people and make it impossible to profit from films over time. The compromise: studios get permanent ownership, but performers get residuals.

Residuals: The Money That Keeps Coming

What her heirs do get—and what they’ll keep getting for decades—are residuals. Every time “Home Alone” airs on cable during the holidays, her heirs receive a payment. Every time someone streams “Schitt’s Creek” on Netflix or Hulu, another payment. Every time a network re-broadcasts an episode of “SCTV,” the checks keep coming.

The Screen Actors Guild negotiated these payments because actors don’t own the copyright. Residuals are compensation for ongoing use of a performance, and they don’t stop when the performer dies.

For broadcast television, residuals start with the second airing and decrease with each subsequent showing until the thirteenth rerun. At that point they plateau at 5% of the original compensation and continue forever at that rate. For streaming, the formulas are different—usually a percentage of revenue rather than flat payments. For theatrical films released to video and cable, yet another calculation applies.

Residuals count as personal property and go to whoever she named in her will, or follow Michigan law if she didn’t leave instructions. This requires active administration, not passive waiting.

Your Face, Your Voice: Protecting Identity Beyond Copyright

Copyright protects the performance as recorded. But there’s another legal protection called the right of publicity—the right to control your own image and voice. This protects her face, her voice, her name, her likeness.

Technology has made it possible to recreate dead performers in ways that would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago. AI can synthesize convincing performances from minutes of source material. Someone could create a “new” Catherine O’Hara performance—her voice selling products she never endorsed, her image appearing in contexts she never agreed to.

In early 2025, Llama Productions used an AI-generated replica of James Earl Jones’s voice for Darth Vader in “Fortnite” without permission from his heirs. SAG-AFTRA filed a formal complaint about breaking labor rules. Copyright law protects the specific recording of Jones saying specific lines, but it doesn’t prevent someone from creating a synthetic version of his voice saying different lines in different contexts.

The Original Copyright Term vs. Today

The current copyright term—life plus 70 years—represents the outcome of a century of extensions. The original Copyright Act of 1790 protected creative output for 14 years, renewable once for another 14 years. Total maximum: 28 years.

That reflected the Founders’ view that copyright should incentivize creation, not establish perpetual property rights. The Constitution authorizes copyright “for limited Times” to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

Congress kept extending the term. Her creative output stays locked up until 2096, whether that serves any legitimate policy goal or not.

What Her Heirs Inherit

Her heirs face a complex administrative process under Michigan probate law. The state requires at least five months before an inheritance can close, giving creditors four months to file claims. For situations involving intellectual property, real estate, and disputed valuations, the process typically extends much longer.

The personal representative must inventory assets, obtain appraisals, manage claims, pay taxes, and distribute what remains to beneficiaries according to her will or according to Michigan law if she died without one.

Intellectual property valuation creates particular headaches. The IRS requires an appraiser to estimate what the copyrights would sell for on the date of death. For this inheritance, that means estimating the likely revenue stream her copyrights and publicity rights will generate over the next 70 years, then converting future money into today’s dollars. This involves guessing about continued use, licensing demand, inflation, and economic variables decades into the future.

When Prince died intestate in 2016, his assets’ initial valuation was $82.3 million. The IRS said $163.2 million. They eventually settled at $156.4 million after years of dispute.

For inheritances exceeding $13.99 million in 2025, the tax rate is 40% on the appraised value of intellectual property assets. Proper planning can minimize this through trusts and lifetime gifts, but only if the planning happens before death.

The Termination Right Almost No One Uses

Buried in the Copyright Act is a provision that could let her heirs take back copyrights she gave away decades ago. Section 203 lets authors—or their heirs—take back copyrights they sold 35 years earlier.

This exists to even out the unfair advantage when young, unknown creators sign away rights for modest upfront payments, unaware their output will become valuable. Decades later, when the creation has generated substantial revenue, the creator or their heirs can reclaim it and renegotiate.

Musicians have used this aggressively. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen have all exercised termination rights to reclaim their catalogs and cut new deals with better terms.

For her, termination rights probably don’t help much. Studios owned her performances from day one, so there’s nothing for her heirs to take back. Termination rights only apply to copyrights the creator initially owned and then transferred. If she wrote, directed, or produced anything where she retained initial ownership, her heirs could potentially exercise termination rights in those pieces. But for her acting performances—the material everyone knows—the studios own the copyright outright.

When Families Get It Wrong

Aretha Franklin died in 2018 without a formal will. Her $6 million holdings, which included music copyrights and property, immediately sparked disputes among her four sons. The family discovered competing handwritten wills after her death, leading to years of litigation over which document should govern distribution. The dispute didn’t resolve until a jury trial in July 2023—five years after Franklin’s death.

During those five years, the intellectual property sat in legal limbo. Licensing deals became complicated. Revenue distribution stalled. Legal fees mounted.

Robin Williams took the opposite approach. Through instructions he put in a trust while alive, Williams restricted commercial use of his likeness for 25 years after his 2014 death. No hologram performances. No AI recreations. No advertisements using his image until at least August 2039. After the restriction expires, his publicity rights transfer to a charitable foundation, not his biological heirs.

The NO FAKES Act: Proposed Federal Protection

Congress is considering the NO FAKES Act—a proposed law to protect voices and likenesses from unauthorized AI replication. The proposed legislation would give individuals an exclusive right to authorize or prohibit AI-generated replicas of their voice or likeness. Upon death, whoever manages the inheritance would control this right for 10 years, then could renew it in 5-year blocks up to 70 years total.

Violations would cost the greater of $5,000 per creation or actual damages. Online platforms that fail to demonstrate genuine attempts to follow the rules face $25,000 per violation.

The NO FAKES Act would fill a gap in copyright law, creating explicit federal protection for individual identity separate from copyright in any particular performance. For her heirs, this would mean clear legal authority to prevent and monetize AI-generated replicas of her voice or appearance for up to 70 years.

Who This System Serves

The current framework generates substantial revenue for certain parties. Michael Jackson’s heirs have earned approximately $3.5 billion since his 2009 death, making him the top-earning deceased celebrity according to Forbes. Prince’s heirs negotiated a $600 million deal with Sony Music in 2024 for a 50% stake in his catalog.

These numbers represent successful posthumous monetization strategies: selling the rights to all their music, theatrical productions, merchandise deals, and licensing arrangements. The heirs employ dedicated teams of managers and attorneys who actively monitor markets and negotiate deals designed to maximize value during the protection period.

The Constitution says copyright should “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”—in other words, encourage people to create. Does protecting creative output for 70 years after the creator’s death incentivize anything except estate planning? She created her performances between the 1970s and 2020s. The creation is done. Extending protection until 2096 doesn’t encourage her to create more—she’s dead. It enriches her heirs and the corporations that own the copyrights, while delaying the moment when these cultural touchstones enter the public domain where subsequent creators can freely adapt, reference, and build upon them.

“Home Alone” has become an American cultural touchstone, a holiday tradition watched by millions of families annually. It won’t enter the public domain until sometime in the 2080s, depending on the work-for-hire calculation. That’s roughly 160 years after the film’s creation—for something that’s already generated hundreds of millions in revenue and achieved complete cultural saturation.

What Comes Next

Her heirs will operate within this framework for decades. They’ll receive residual payments, manage licensing deals, enforce publicity rights, and potentially confront AI-generated replicas of her performances. They’ll pay taxes on intellectual property valuations, file copyright registrations, and coordinate with international collecting societies to capture global royalties.

In 2096, seventy years after her death, her performances will finally enter the public domain. Future creators will be able to freely adapt, reference, and build upon her material without seeking permission or paying licensing fees.

Whether that’s the right timeline—whether 70 years serves any legitimate purpose beyond enriching heirs and corporations—remains an open question. Congress has repeatedly answered in favor of longer terms. The public has never been asked to weigh in.

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