Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Nobody's saying that it should be.
A "salaried" job is an inappropriate analogy. A writer is more akin to someone who's set up their own business, and is paying a manager (the publisher) to run it for them. The author receives an income from the business, even though he doesn't actively work in the business.
Now, our business owner dies. Can his wife continue to receive income from the business? Sure - the law has no problem with company ownership being passed to your descendents. Should the author's situation be different?
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I'm afraid that's also not entirely an appropriate analogy but it's already far better than mine.
You can inherit a company but that company still needs to continue to produce goods - in this case new books. If the company fails to do this, there will (and should) be no income because the company is effectively dead.