Quote:
Originally Posted by sonofpendragon
I think it should last forever anyway, so that's an easy one for me. I think others have mentioned here something similar, but none of us can turn up at someone's luxury villa on the Algarve 70 years after it was built, and say to the residents' 'clear out, folks, it's ours now', yet we can do this with books (based on the authors' demise, not the age of the book itself). .
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I'm not sure that analogy holds up: after all the builders of the luxury villa only get paid once - they don't expect to turn up every year and be paid again, still less expect their children and grandchildren to be paid.
Royalties and license payments for intellectual property are fairly unique in human endeavour - most people do a job (paint a picture, carve a sculpture, design a building or whatever), get paid and that's it. Personally I think life plus a few decades is about right - it gives people incentive to create and innovate and rewards them for doing so.