[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I also see no reason why an author cannot profit from his works during his lifetime. If a book can be good or important enough to be reread for decades, even a century, it is worth compensating the author for it.

(Edit: I agree, on the face it might not seem to be right... but consider that authors are rarely paid by the hour to write. They work hard to create something, like any artist, but they are not paid once for their creation, like another artist... they are essentially paid by the sale, plus a commission fee, making it more of a profession than an artist's career. This also makes writing one of the hardest professions to profit in, since a writer may not see major return from their book for years.)

Of course, original patent and copyright laws were written for shorter periods, specifically because people didn't live past 50 when they were written... so they were intended to last for the author's conceivable lifetime. Obviously that's changed today, and the law should be rewritten to specify "the author's lifetime," whatever that may be.