Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
Nope. They should not. In other lines of work income stops when people die. You want to take care of your family? Buy life insurance.
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What's to prevent an author who wants to care for his family from handing his deathbed memoirs off to his 12-year-old, and having them published in the child's name? Or, if that's too implausible, his spouse's name.
One of the things the current system does is encourage honesty; families don't have to consider, "which of us is most likely to get the financial rewards from this book?" and lie about who actually wrote it.
When women mostly couldn't get published, a lot of them used pseudonyms or published under their husband's names. We don't need a habit of "anyone over the age of 60 tries to find a trusted family member at least 20 years younger to claim as the author, so the family has a better chance of getting financial reward for the work."
However, this is mostly a moot discussion; as Kali Yuga says, L+50 as the Berne convention minimum is not likely to be changed, short of drastic international treaty breakdown.