Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That's not really true. If you're a builder, you can build a house, and leave that house to your heirs. If you're a carpenter, you can make a warehouse full of chairs, which your heirs can sell after your death. The point about writing a book (or composing a symphony, or any other creative work) is that you don't get any money at all until it's finished. You're not paid a salary - the royalty payments are your salary. It seems reasonable to me that they should form a part of your estate.
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And a builder has to buy or rent land to build the house upon, buy all materials, too - and he will not earn money building that house unless he rents the house to someone...
Carpenters will have to buy materials, too. And in the time needed to built the chairs to leave for the heirs, he can't build chairs to sell directly.
Both the builder and the carpenter will have to work in their spare time. The author could do the same (and lots or maybe even most of them do).
An author can get a house built from his royalties to leave for his heirs. It will be a bit more expensive for him since he has to pay for the builder as well (but I guess a builder will mostly get help he pays for as well).
And if the chairs are sold, they are gone - and I doubt he will have been able built chairs to last for 70 years after his death.
So there's still ab bit of a difference...