Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Certainly it's not precisely the same, I agree; I was using it as a counter to the previous poster's assertion that copyright holders were "unique" in being able to earn money after death. They are not. Pretty much all of us can do it who are members of company pension schemes.
An author's royalty payments are the legacy he leaves to his family. Let's say an author writes a massively popular bestseller, which is published the week before he dies. The publisher will earn a shed-load of money from it; the bookstores will earn money from it; is it really right that the author's family should have no entitlement whatsoever to the income it generates?
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Let's say an author writes a massively popular bestseller, which is publishes 30 years before he dies. The publisher will earn a shed-load of money from it; the bookstores will earn money from it; is it really right that the author's family should still earn a lot of money for it, for 70 years after the death of the author?
I think that most people agree that there should be a copyright for x amount of years. And I think also that most people agree that this copyright can be extended beyond the death of the author. But why bind the copyright to the life of the author, instead of the life of the book? Even if an author writes a book in his teens, if the copyright age isn't changed, only the start date, he'll still have a steady income till he's probably dead or at least reached a high age...
The question wouldn't be: when did the author die, but rather, when was the book first published. How many books would fall out of copyright then?