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For most physical items, we pay the creator/manufacturer once and for all, no matter how successful the item is, how many people benefit from it (or whether anyone at all benefits), the amount of happines it brings, or whatever. Someone makes a table, you buy the table, the carpenter gets paid a (hopefully) fair amount for his work and everyone is happy. You can use the table in your birthday parties and pass it to your children, or you can store it in a cellar and never use it, but that doesn't change the amount you paid to the carpenter, and wheter he is alive or dead doesn't change anything either.
The problem with copyright is we expect people to be paid more or less depending on the success their creations find. From a writer's perspective, it would be perfectly fair if a publisher paid him a fixed amount for writing a book. He's done the work, he gets paid, what's the problem? Of course, if the book sells exceptionally well and movies are made and many people makes lots of money, he may think that's not fair, but if he agreed on the terms at the beginning I don't think he should complain...
(Still, the "problem" of copyright would be shifted to the publisher, though...)
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