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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
If his family can't profit from those novels, what motivation do they have to publish them? Likewise, if a publisher can't have exclusive rights to them, it lowers their incentive to actually publish the novels.
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Whatever is wrong with doing stuff, whatever stuff it might be, for the benefit of culture and society in general? To suggest that no-one will do x if they can't make shedloads of money off it is not just, in my opinion, a fallacy, but also, again, somewhat insulting to a huge number of people. And I say that as someone who has relatively little faith in humanity in general.
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However, the other argument was that money provides an incentive for writers to write. Yes some writers will write regardless of whether or not their books will make money, but many authors do write exactly because of the money it provides them and some of them are quite good.
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When exactly did this turn from "copyright to end at death" to "no copyright at all"? Because surely that's what you are suggesting?
A good author's books will (hopefully) sell well and earn that author a good income during his or her lifetime. In what way then has the incentive to write for money been removed by limiting copyright to lifetime only? And what is wrong with that author saving some of that income if he or she want to leave something to the next generation? That, after all, is the way most people have to do these things.
The same point addresses Dickens' writing - he made money doing so, during his lifetime, and would hence have continued writing even if copyright ended on his deathbed. Personally I believe that once he had started writing, he would have done so even if it made him little or no money, but that's neither here, nor there, as it can neither be proved, nor disproved.