ext_100280 ([identity profile] king-pellinor.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] king_pellinor 2007-05-17 10:57 am (UTC)

"...you are charging for work and the reality that someone is a partner in that work long after their contribution has ended."

How do you see that? I'd have thought that to be contradictory.

I see the copyright period as being a chance to actually get paid for the work you've done: the book I just wrote is worth say £10,000, but that's only going to come from sales over a period of time. I should therefore be given say 10 or 20 years to make those sales, and if I can't do that then it's my own look-out. I don't have to publish, if I don't want the copyright to expire. After that initial time, there are two possibilities:

1) Nobody cares any more, and sales become negligible. Copyright's not doing me any good, the work should go into the public domain so anyone can develop it, should they want to; or

2) Everyone's really keen on it, and sales are still healthy. Copyright's doing me a lot of good, but it's injuring everyone else who'd like to join in. The work should go into the public domain so other people can have a go at developing what is obviously a relatively important part of the public culture.

As for my financial security, I should either be writing more books or saving for my retirement.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting