Quote:
Originally Posted by axel77
But the value of your house is totally unrelated to your expected lifetime. Why should the work of creating a copyrighted work have a different value dependent if you live longer or shorter?
To put it simply: You write book X, in total this work is worth Y dollars. You can pass Y dollars to your heirs. I agree the difficulty with intellectual work is that it proofs its value only over time, and nearly impossible to determine in forehand. Thats why a publisher will not give you Y dollars the moment you sell him the book, and then market it himself. He gives you money dependent on the worth this book proofes itself (how often it sells in the coming decades).
I don't understand why any flat rate should be unjust. One can argue how long a copyrighted intellectual work should be protected to give you a revenue that justifies the work and genius put into it. However I don't get it, why this value should depent on your life time. Okay when you can convince me that 50 years is not enough, maybe make it 100 years flat. I just can't get it in my head why the work of a young author should be more worth than the work of an old. The young author can save the revenues of his book until death and bequeath it to the children + the remaining copyright time after his death, why the old one can only bequeath the copyright, which in total was hold a quite shorter time.
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The value is related to author's lifetime because it's my creation and I would not want my rights to it taken away from me while I was alive.
As to your point about young author versus old author, I'm sure both young and old authors want to keep their rights during their lifetimes.