Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellby
But you get paid for the value of your work at once. An author (or other creative professionals) doesn't get paid for his/her work when it's done, but the payment is somewhat deferred and dependent on its quality (or success). If the author gets some some advance, then the problem is transferred to the publisher...
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I agree that an author gets paid for his work during his lifetime. And I don't mind that. Even if it's a one-in-a-lifetime book (he only wrote one book and it sold well), I don't mind having to pay for that book even though it might have been written 80 years ago (he was 20 and he now turned 100). But I do mind having to pay his children and children's children and maybe even his children's children's children for something they didn't even do.
I don't propose a copyright for so many years after the book has been first published, I think it should still be at least the author's life-time (or maybe nominal life-time, as anything might happen, to cut the life short), but adding 70! years is a bit over the top...
About the publisher, if you loan people money, there's always the chance you don't get it back. The book might be a huge let-down, for example. That's a chance you must take as a publishers.