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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Eric Flint
has some interesting stuff to say on the question of copyright duration:
"Perhaps the best way to make this clear, is to put it in the bluntest, harshest way I can. Why in the hell do some authors think they are entitled to an elite privilege that no one else in society gets?
Let's take a waitress, who works her whole life as one. She is entitled to her pay, and her tips. And, when she dies, she can leave to her children whatever—usually little—there is in the way of material possessions that her life's trade enabled her to accumulate.
What she can't do, however, is demand that even after she retires, she is entitled to a percentage of the tips from "her" table. Even though the income from those "tip royalties" would undoubtedly be more substantial to her—a lot more substantial—than whatever money a writer who produced a handful of stories would ever get for a story being reissued more than fourteen years after it was written. (Much less twenty-eight years, if they renewed it.)"
Not sure I completely agree with his argument, but it's definitely an interesting take on the subject.