Wouldn’t this scheme benefit children? Imagine growing up on Arthur and hitting early adulthood as its copyright expires and being able to contribute to the Arthur universe you grew up on. Conversely, I wonder how many people know Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is public domain and different from the version Disney has had since the 50s. The way things are now, I couldn’t make anything related to most of the things I grew up with because everything being pushed on children is owned by a corporation.
The issue with Alice's Adventures is separate from copyright. Many (most) people have never read Lewis Carroll; being in the public domain doesn't change that, and there is no giant profit in publishing books in the public domain, so they aren't going to get a big promotional budget.
That’s the point, though. It would be more famous except that there’s a seemingly endless amount of money promoting corporate-owned media. Things might be different if the media kids take in is more organic and they might be more encouraged to contribute to writing and art if the things they grew up on weren’t encumbered by copyright.
Another thing to note also is that kids had stories long before Disney was making VHS tapes and before we had Scholastic pumping out picture books. It’s not like we as humans are incapable of creating without a monetary incentive.
