Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
Many of the most beloved classics are in the public domain. If copyright is eternal, books die, they will simply disappear into limbo. An obscure public domain book might be rediscovered, but a book that sits in an eternal limbo will not.
One major reason that so many groups do Shakespeare's plays is that they are in the public domain. Shakespeare may very well have been utterly forgotten were it not for the public domain.
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Do not disagree at all but Shakespeare is Shakespeare and has been a major part of scholastic material and dramatizations for quite a while. I have read Shakespeare because I wanted to and then later because I had to. Same with Dickens.
I am pretty sure that the public domaine had little to do with it as these (and other) authors have been published/analized/rewritten relentlessly by various people and when producing a movie the cost of the script is pretty negligible overall.
And people buy print editions of books by Shakespeare and Dickens,Walt Whitman, Robert Service, Jack London etc. at $30+ a copy (I worked in a bookstore for a while 20 years ago) but public domain was not the cause.
Publishers spent the big bucks in typesetting, illustrating, distribution, promotion etc. Authors royalties are as we all aware a pretty small factor in publishing and a smaller one in paper book publishing.
I was speaking as well of the vast majority of non-famous (in our times) authors but I am still shaking my head in amazement at Shakespeare owing his sucess to the public domain.
Helen