Berinaidan says:
So an auto mechanic or a plumber who starts a business, works hard his whole life, and then dies can pass that business on to his widow and his children, who can then continue it or sell it, but an author's work shouldn't continue to benefit his family for a reasonable time also?
That analogy would only work if the auto mechanic's family continued to work on other people's cars without being paid after he died. Imagine a conversation like this:
"Hi, this is Susan Ellison with Harlan's Harleys. I must inform you that the 1983 Sportster you bought was repaired in 1995 by my husband, and until you pay for continued use of his creative works you are in violation of the Lieberman-Cheney Copyright Extension Act of 2004..."
Nobody is depriving those poor widows and orphans the right to continue the family business of "speculative fiction" after the author dies, but a single written work doesn't guarantee the author's decendants a pepeptual income long after the author has been compensated for that original work. If your hypothetical mechanic's family wants to continue the family business, great! I just hope they know a cylinder from a simile, because nobody's going to pay them for work that has already been paid for.
I'm not saying Harlan isn't right to go after people who give his work away for free without his permission; he can and should do so. But going after the uninvolved providers of the medium which was used to commit the crime detracts from his otherwise high moral stand, and the argument that an artist's work should generate income for that artist's descendants perpeptually is irrelevant - not to mention short-sighted, greedy, and just plain stupid. But that's also beside the point.
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Berinaidan says: So an auto mechanic or a plumber who starts a business, works hard his whole life, and then dies can pass that business on to his widow and his children, who can then continue it or sell it, but an author's work shouldn't continue to benefit his family for a reasonable time also?
That analogy would only work if the auto mechanic's family continued to work on other people's cars without being paid after he died. Imagine a conversation like this: "Hi, this is Susan Ellison with Harlan's Harleys. I must inform you that the 1983 Sportster you bought was repaired in 1995 by my husband, and until you pay for continued use of his creative works you are in violation of the Lieberman-Cheney Copyright Extension Act of 2004..." Nobody is depriving those poor widows and orphans the right to continue the family business of "speculative fiction" after the author dies, but a single written work doesn't guarantee the author's decendants a pepeptual income long after the author has been compensated for that original work. If your hypothetical mechanic's family wants to continue the family business, great! I just hope they know a cylinder from a simile, because nobody's going to pay them for work that has already been paid for. I'm not saying Harlan isn't right to go after people who give his work away for free without his permission; he can and should do so. But going after the uninvolved providers of the medium which was used to commit the crime detracts from his otherwise high moral stand, and the argument that an artist's work should generate income for that artist's descendants perpeptually is irrelevant - not to mention short-sighted, greedy, and just plain stupid. But that's also beside the point.