No. You don't need to wait half a lifetime. You only need to wait that long if you sign a contract and sell all of the rights. If you don't want to wait, just insist upon another time period. And it should be noted that the contracts only transfer ownership rights to a piece of property. It's like selling a car or a house. Would you buy a car with a legal backdoor that lets the builder take it back after a few years.

My guess is that you won't find any publishers interested. Why? Because developing a work requires quite an investment and only the hits make any profit. The backlist is what keeps everyone in business.

> Would you buy a car with a legal backdoor that lets the builder take it back after a few years.

Plenty of people lease. One way of looking at this is that Congress has kind of said you can only lease copyright (of certain types) and the maximum lease term is 35 years. Other jurisdictions have similar things with different names.

You could get different terms, but I'm sure you need clout first. Of course, the majority of my output is work for hire and I retain no rights and can't terminate it later; oh well.