Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
Jesus.....the lengths. Everybody benefits from what came before. But nobody comes to the farmer to confiscate his fields, to the tradesman to confiscate his bank account, to the teacher to confiscate her house. How come an author's works are deemed “owned by society”?
You don’t deserve Mickey Mouse any more than you deserve your neighbor's car.
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Ah there is the concept of Eminent domain actually. And if a writer's books didn't eventually become public domain then a number of publishing houses would have probably gone under in the past. I mean I'm sure different publishers still publish books like Dracula, Frankenstein and Treasure Island just to name three books in the PD. Not all of them had publishing deals with the authors I'm sure. The classics are still sold because people still like to read them and if they weren't in public domain they could be sued if they didn't pay out to the author (or his estate). Those sales I have no doubt provide some of the income that the publisher needs in order to publish new authors and/or new books by still living published authors.