Quote:
Originally Posted by carpetmojo
I would like to be able to see no reason why the rights to income from a book, fiction or non, should extend beyond the life of the creator.
But we then are confonted by the argument that the writer's estate, i.e. family, or trust, should continue to profit - in the very same way as a building's rent, a painting's reproduction, performances of a play, a new plant, a medical breakthrough, an inventor's patent........
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The key reason for extending the rights beyond the life of the creator is to provide incentive to publish late in life. This is both incentive for the author to write, even if he's on his deathbed, to allow his family future income, and incentive for the publisher to publish & distribute, so they don't lose their exclusive control immediately on death (or at the first of the next year, which would be more likely).
However, there's no reason for copyright to extend for the life of the author; the publishing industry seemed to get along fine with fixed terms for a couple-hundred years. And if copyright expires and a work is still popular, the author can release an updated version, or annotated version, just like publishers release public domain works with new content. The original text is PD, but the new book is not.