Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
I would suggest that there are many issues here, some of which go beyond money.
Take the idea of fairness in compensation. Ignore the tabulation of nickles and dimes here, because that's not what I'm talking about here. Rather, look at how people are paid for their work.
Computer programming was brought up several times, which is an interesting comparison because the task is similar to writing yet it is considered work for hire. It doesn't matter whether the programmer is salaried or paid hourly, they are paid for the work rather than based upon the sales of the product. The reality is that most people are paid for the work that they do, may they be providing a service or producing a product. Indeed, many businesses generate revenues in a similar manner: they are paid based upon what they produce, rather than what their product produces. Does it surprise you when people are offended when an author can spend a year working on a book, and their descendents can earn revenue from it decades after the author died?
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With all due respect, a programmer being paid by the hour, or monthly, or whatever his compensation package is,
isn't remotely doing the same thing that an author is doing. There's nothing comparable about it. An author is taking on an entrepreneurial risk--going without any pay, generally, for the entirety of that year (or however long),
on the gamble that his or her work will pay off. What the author is doing is more akin to what a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs does, in launching a company (on a smaller scale, unless you're J.K. Rowling). In the normal course of things, it's
nothing alike whatsoever.
If a programmer decides to create
his own software product, or
his own website, and puts
his own time and money into doing that for a year, and then launches it, and earns from it--would you think that his "term of rights" for that entrepreneurial risk should be limited? Is everyone offended when entrepreneurs' descendants live comfortably off what
they earn?
In the case of an author, what their "product" produces IS what "they produce," to address your business example.
An author who is paid for the work they produce--for example, a journalist collecting a check from a newspaper--is akin to your programmer example. No risk, no reward. Work-for-hire. Each is comfortably collecting their paychecks, that someone ELSE is paying, for which someone ELSE takes the risk. An author who is writing on spec (speculation) is taking exactly the same risk as any other small businessman or entrepreneur, and deserves the same risk-reward ratio as those folks expect. That's why having a bestseller is called "hitting it big," after all.
Someone else takes the risk, gives you a check--then they own what you produce. You take the risk, you go without, or you create the product? Then YOU own what you produce, and any reward, or lack thereof, that comes along with it. That's capitalism 101. Paid employees versus entrepreneurs. Not the same thing at all, and the time it took the latter to create their successful product is unrelated to "how deserving" they are of the rewards.
Hitch