Sure is! I would say their work should be protected the same way. When I was mentioning the programmer above, I was definitely not clear. I should have been mo

Sure is! I would say their work should be protected the same way. When I was mentioning the programmer above, I was definitely not clear. I should have been more clear. The difference I was trying to portray is that artist work tends to come in two forms: * pay ahead of time * pay in the future I was speaking mostly of the contract workers that work for another company and could be fired "tomorrow" and never see another penny - their pennies were earned in their salaries. Artistic work regularly comes in the "pay in the future" form. We see that all the time with books, songs and yes, indie game or other software developers working on passion projects. Having copyright immediately end at death harms the desires for those creators to do work, especially later in their lives, where they personally won't reap the benefits of it; but, their children could. "Plant a tree for your grandkids to swing in" and all that. But yes, you are entirely correct with regards to developers working on passion projects.