Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
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
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Please, don't always think that copyright = payment.
And don't think that copyrighted work are the only works published. If you don't believe me, just go in a book store and browse for Shakespeare.
I'm not telling the author should not be paid, nor that the publisher should not profit from his work.
Monopoly is not at all the only way to profit.
And, again, you can't damage billions of readers for the advantage of a couple of 80 years old writers who write bad books (good books will always be profitable, copyright or not).
And I don't think that extended copyright is an incentive to authors, too.
If I wrote a
Da Potter Code which stays on the best seller list for decades, and it'll be always making money for me and my children, even from movie director's work, why should I work one day more in my life? I wouldn't even write the address on the postcards I send from the Caribbeans!!!!!!!!!!!
Unless I'm particularly greedy, of course...
