Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
I’m not so sure in the age of ebooks that “books disappear” is much of a concern.
Of course it’s those “rare” economically viable works that drive the copyright debate. Nobody writes fan fiction in the <name some obscure book that never sold well in the first place>.
It’s precisely those works that still HAVE economic value that people want to take that value for themselves via getting a book for free or writing new works based on economically valuable characters someone else created.
In fact, I think “economic death” might be a better yardstick than death of the author. If a book goes 28 years with no economic activity...it’s fair game.
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I could go for that scheme.
Actually, quite a few of the licensed universes don't have significant economic value. Jerry Pournelle created a licensed universe, War World that produced some 8 volumes of short stories. He said that he made very little money on that.
FanFic, of course, has little to no economic value, that's why authors tend to take a live and let live approach to it. I suspect the main economic value for those who write FanFlc, is the possibility of being noticed by an agent or publishing firm.
Of course, there is very little economic value to most books published in a year. That's why most can't make a living as an author.