Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Why do you have this fixation that copyright has something to do with writing books? Copyright gives you (or your heirs - for 70 years, anyway) the right to control distribution of what you've already written.
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I don't know about anyone else, but I have the idea the copyright has something to do with encouraging authors to write books because historically, that's why this form of limited monopoly was legalized. It's been discussed
ad nauseum at MR and elsewhere.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think Harper Lee should
still be able to control distribution of
To Kill a Mockingbird. Perhaps she could still be making a living from that book, perhaps not. Perhaps if she'd lost copyright on the book, she'd have written something else by now. Perhaps not. It's irrelevant. She holds the monopoly society granted in order to encourage writers, but hasn't written anything else. She can earn a living on the lecture circuit if she still wants to make money, or she can write new introductions every now and then and see if she can get publishers to print new editions and give her the proceeds. But I think she's long since made back the investment of writing the book.
Nor do I think non-minor heirs should receive sole benefits from the writing (or other copyrightable) efforts of a deceased creator. Unless they're like Christopher Tolkein, making a living of sifting through the parent's upublished works, of course.
Then again, I'm not much of a fan of inherited wealth overall....