Quote:
Originally Posted by Format C:
I still can't understand why...
I'd like a copyright linked to the author's life, and not transferable to nobody else (especially not to firms, establishmets or corporations...).
To die at 25 is a tragedy whatever the job is.
But we should not deprive the entire world from a PD property just in case... |
Well there are a couple of reasons....
The average person is usually paid within two weeks of performing the work for their job. Authors on the other hand may not receive payment for their work until years after they have completed the work (Yes many authors receive advances, but that is the way the publishing industry works currently, there is no way to be sure it will still work that way 10 years from now). As a result a perod of copyright ensures that the author and his estate has a reasonable chance to profit from the work he performed.
By ensuring that copyrights can extend past the life time of the author, it provides publishers a reasonable incentive to actually publish the work of an older author. For example, lets assume that an author is in his 80s and is rather ill; he does have enough left for one last publishable work. If copyright ends at death, the publisher may decide to skip the novel since they will have very little chance to profit from their work before the work enters into the public domain. In other words, by trying to speed a work into the public domain, you might be ensuring that the work is never published at all.
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Bill