@George Snyder
You're proposing a system to create a series of copyright registration offices (one for every country? will that be $1950 a year to re-register everywhere?) administrating everything published, on a yearly basis, and which will need to somehow arbitrate between for profit and non-profit uses (the sort of thing which even the fine legal minds behind CC are stuck on) and which will only be used for one sort of format and you think that's simple? It might be better - certainly I'm fine with death+20 and 70 for Big Corporations - but I'd say it's actually more complex.
More importantly, do you think it's fair that an author miss out on control of digital versions (control which your system recognises as valuable) if, after five years and three sales, they don't renew their copyright only for their book to become insanely popular - made into a film in year ten of its existence, say? One of the reasons for copyright on books lasting a long time is the recognition that it's difficult to accurately predict value over time for books. Sure, it might be that it becomes popular and is filmed *because* it's freely available, but in that case people should be doing that anyway, and encouraged to do that, not just if they can't pony up a sawbuck every year.
It's probably moot anyway, because free digital versions of books are going to be widely available without registration unrenewed, legally as part of marketing campaigns, or illegally as part of the the continuing confusion between civil rights and entertainment.
And the Reg needs a 'Squirrel Boy is evil' icon.