Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer
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Imagine you're a new parent at 30 years old and you've just published a bestselling new novel. Under the current system, if you lived to 70 years old and your descendants all had children at the age of 30, the copyright in your book – and thus the proceeds – would provide for your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.
But what, I ask, about your great-great-great-grandchildren? What do they get? How can our laws be so heartless as to deny them the benefit of your hard work in the name of some do-gooding concept as the "public good", simply because they were born a mere century and a half after the book was written? After all, when you wrote your book, it sprung from your mind fully-formed, without requiring any inspiration from other creative works – you owe nothing at all to the public. And what would the public do with your book, even if they had it? Most likely, they'd just make it worse.....
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If someone may be very talented, clever, lucky, or just works very hard and very creatively, makes a lot of money, [ might even be a banker, lawyer, tax avoidance specialist, or an asset-stripping expert, ] retires early, and invests all his proceeds from commercial activity in, say, a lot of shares/trust fund/ chemical factory, or even a "society beneficial" enterprise, which earns a
lot of money, that is protected by various clever legal arrangements, and all the proceeds are willed to his off-spring for 70 years after his death.............. or longer, including the ownership of all said wheezes................
Ummm... why can't we chuck that out as well ?
Or do the authors just need better lawyers ?
