Quote:
Originally Posted by sirbruce
But works that are copyrighted, by their very nature, are intellectual properties that pay out over time. If authors got paid a fixed amount up front and that's it, it wouldn't be any different. But since the copyright is an asset that continues to generate income, the question is not whether or not they deserve it but how long that asset should continue to generate income.
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Yet, we do NOT treat this particular type of the intellectual property (there are others, technology patents come to mind) as a financial or commercial asset. For a very long time, the institution of a library and (almost) free access to the copyrighted material is built into the system as an exception.