6 ms·

If, after 16 years of trying to profit from a work, $65k isn't a trivial amount for you, you have failed to do the work justice[1]. Maybe it is time for someone

If, after 16 years of trying to profit from a work, $65k isn't a trivial amount for you, you have failed to do the work justice[1]. Maybe it is time for someone else to try? [1] Or it is truly worthless; in which case, what do you need to retain the copyright for?

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
OR the work is a short story in which case it will not ever earn anywhere near 65K unless movie rights to the short story are sold. OR it was a novel that did not sell well in the first printing but had a small devoted clique and then some years later starts selling enough to make $120,000 a year. OR it didn't get taken up by many people but now there is some interest in your work so people are talking about potentially buying the rights for Netflix but of course you have to pay 65K to make sure you have those rights to sell, which is money you don't have, so you need to take out a loan in order to potentially profit from your labor. OR you're Peter Beagle https://www.cbr.com/the-last-unicorn-peter-s-beagle-regains-rights/ https://www.cbr.com/the-last-unicorn-peter-s-beagle-regains-... The fact is that there are a million ways in which a class of entrepreneurs make money off of their work, even though, like most entrepreneurs they fail, and whenever HN starts talking copyright there are always people who probably make significantly more per year than the average writer does at writing who want to make sure writers make even less. It's weird that HN often loves entrepreneurs, and wants to make things easier for them - but not writers. Aside from that this scheme, as most other fix copyright schemes, will not be taken up by most other countries (other than U.S I mean) as they tend to have a "copyright exists because creators have moral rights to ownership of their work" theory of copyright and not the whole "copyright exists to foster innovation" theory. As other countries will not follow the U.S you would have what you often have today, things in Public Domain in U.S and not in other countries and so you cannot freely make derivative works for an international audience at least as you would be sued.
- benj111 3y ago
  Shakespeare is still popular, should we extend copyright so that his great great great great great great great great grand kids get a pay out from film rights and the like? Further, you are still free to take that risk and pay the 64k. Just like you are free to buy/sell that bitcoin for $x. That is your risk to take.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    >Shakespeare is still popular, should we extend copyright so that his great great great great great great great great grand kids get a pay out from film rights and the like? OR one can make an argument that has nothing to do with any of the things I commented and tick an item off the HN scorecard! >Further, you are still free to take that risk Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating something in the first place as it would be a world with much less chance of a payoff.
    - benj111 3y ago
      >Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating something in the first place as it would be a world with much less chance of a payoff. Do people create things on the basis that there might be a payoff 16 years down the line? Did David Bowie write his last album on the basis of how how much money he'd make? The first year is $1, is that a risk? 2nd year is $2. If you written a book or whatever I would think you've got some insight by then whether it's worth paying the $4. And the Shakespeare reference is relevant because where do you want the cutoff? Life+70 is nonsensical, unless you're arguing for perpetual copywrite you need a line somewhere. Where do you want to draw the line?
      - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
        >And the Shakespeare reference is relevant because where do you want the cutoff? Life+70 is nonsensical, unless you're arguing for perpetual copywrite you need a line somewhere. Where do you want to draw the line? Life + 70 is based on the concept of copyright outside of the U.S which doesn't think copyright exists to promote the arts but rather because if you create something you have a right to how it is disposed. All of these clever American solutions to copyright that would fix how it works in the U.S are not going to affect how it works outside the U.S and thus Life + 70 is more in keeping with the non-American conception of the purpose of copyright. Outside the U.S pay 1 dollar to own something you made is nonsensical.
        3y ago
- randomdata 3y ago
  > OR the work is a short story in which case it will not ever earn anywhere near 65K unless movie rights to the short story are sold. Right, so where's the social value in it? The work has proven to be of little value. What's in it for the people who extend copyright to keep giving it to you even though they don't really care for what you have to offer? Moreover, while your entire story has proved a complete and utter failure, what if just one page of your story has tremendous value for the next author who knows how to add a more compelling page 2? Why do we want to hold back that human progress so you can sit on something that doesn't even make you any money?
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    please see other responses - the U.S model of copyright is not the only one in the world and many other places do not believe the purpose of copyright is to foster human progress. >Moreover, while your entire story has proved a complete and utter failure I'm thinking you probably don't know anything about the pricing of short stories? At any rate in the example given I supposed that a short story can earn higher rates than normal rates for short story publication which might, if you are lucky, be somewhere around a few thousand dollars at publication in magazine form, some more thousands at winning an award, and then in a collection of short stories where it might reliably earn 10000 dollars a year (for its share of the whole collection length of something), note - that would be an extremely successful short story as far as short stories go (without selling media rights) Obviously this varies depending on where you sell your stuff, and if you earn money for awards. Let's say you sell to the New Yorker http://quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-new-yorker-1-world-trade-center-new.html http://quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-new-y... so you earn about 7,500 for the short story. The award that has paid out the most for a short story ever evidently paid 30 thousand pounds https://lithub.com/read-the-story-that-just-won-the-biggest-short-story-prize-in-the-world/ https://lithub.com/read-the-story-that-just-won-the-biggest-... You may not know this but very few stories win awards, awards being structured to be relatively rare. Obviously if someone has not one an award for their short story you may consider that their work has been a complete and utter failure, but even so... let us consider if someone sold to the New Yorker, which hopefully you will agree is likely to be one of the better paying markets and evidently by your calculation one of the short story markets that publishes things that are not complete and utter failures (because it pays more than others right?), and if they then won the highest paying award ever they would have another 30,000, now assuming this short story is part of a collection of short stories and the author is really popular I think we can say this short story in the collection makes about 10,000 per year. in 16 years that is - for one of the most successful short stories in the world - 197,500 dollars. on edit: I really find it amusing that HN of all places really wants to limit how people can make money on what is an entrepreneurial activity - sitting down and writing a story and then trying to sell it.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

OR the work is a short story in which case it will not ever earn anywhere near 65K unless movie rights to the short story are sold. OR it was a novel that did not sell well in the first printing but had a small devoted clique and then some years later starts selling enough to make $120,000 a year. OR it didn't get taken up by many people but now there is some interest in your work so people are talking about potentially buying the rights for Netflix but of course you have to pay 65K to make sure you have those rights to sell, which is money you don't have, so you need to take out a loan in order to potentially profit from your labor. OR you're Peter Beagle https://www.cbr.com/the-last-unicorn-peter-s-beagle-regains-rights/ https://www.cbr.com/the-last-unicorn-peter-s-beagle-regains-... The fact is that there are a million ways in which a class of entrepreneurs make money off of their work, even though, like most entrepreneurs they fail, and whenever HN starts talking copyright there are always people who probably make significantly more per year than the average writer does at writing who want to make sure writers make even less. It's weird that HN often loves entrepreneurs, and wants to make things easier for them - but not writers. Aside from that this scheme, as most other fix copyright schemes, will not be taken up by most other countries (other than U.S I mean) as they tend to have a "copyright exists because creators have moral rights to ownership of their work" theory of copyright and not the whole "copyright exists to foster innovation" theory. As other countries will not follow the U.S you would have what you often have today, things in Public Domain in U.S and not in other countries and so you cannot freely make derivative works for an international audience at least as you would be sued.

benj111 3y ago
Shakespeare is still popular, should we extend copyright so that his great great great great great great great great grand kids get a pay out from film rights and the like? Further, you are still free to take that risk and pay the 64k. Just like you are free to buy/sell that bitcoin for $x. That is your risk to take.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  >Shakespeare is still popular, should we extend copyright so that his great great great great great great great great grand kids get a pay out from film rights and the like? OR one can make an argument that has nothing to do with any of the things I commented and tick an item off the HN scorecard! >Further, you are still free to take that risk Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating something in the first place as it would be a world with much less chance of a payoff.
  - benj111 3y ago
    >Probably if they were smart they would just forego the risk of creating something in the first place as it would be a world with much less chance of a payoff. Do people create things on the basis that there might be a payoff 16 years down the line? Did David Bowie write his last album on the basis of how how much money he'd make? The first year is $1, is that a risk? 2nd year is $2. If you written a book or whatever I would think you've got some insight by then whether it's worth paying the $4. And the Shakespeare reference is relevant because where do you want the cutoff? Life+70 is nonsensical, unless you're arguing for perpetual copywrite you need a line somewhere. Where do you want to draw the line?
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      >And the Shakespeare reference is relevant because where do you want the cutoff? Life+70 is nonsensical, unless you're arguing for perpetual copywrite you need a line somewhere. Where do you want to draw the line? Life + 70 is based on the concept of copyright outside of the U.S which doesn't think copyright exists to promote the arts but rather because if you create something you have a right to how it is disposed. All of these clever American solutions to copyright that would fix how it works in the U.S are not going to affect how it works outside the U.S and thus Life + 70 is more in keeping with the non-American conception of the purpose of copyright. Outside the U.S pay 1 dollar to own something you made is nonsensical.
      - 3y ago
randomdata 3y ago
> OR the work is a short story in which case it will not ever earn anywhere near 65K unless movie rights to the short story are sold. Right, so where's the social value in it? The work has proven to be of little value. What's in it for the people who extend copyright to keep giving it to you even though they don't really care for what you have to offer? Moreover, while your entire story has proved a complete and utter failure, what if just one page of your story has tremendous value for the next author who knows how to add a more compelling page 2? Why do we want to hold back that human progress so you can sit on something that doesn't even make you any money?
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  please see other responses - the U.S model of copyright is not the only one in the world and many other places do not believe the purpose of copyright is to foster human progress. >Moreover, while your entire story has proved a complete and utter failure I'm thinking you probably don't know anything about the pricing of short stories? At any rate in the example given I supposed that a short story can earn higher rates than normal rates for short story publication which might, if you are lucky, be somewhere around a few thousand dollars at publication in magazine form, some more thousands at winning an award, and then in a collection of short stories where it might reliably earn 10000 dollars a year (for its share of the whole collection length of something), note - that would be an extremely successful short story as far as short stories go (without selling media rights) Obviously this varies depending on where you sell your stuff, and if you earn money for awards. Let's say you sell to the New Yorker http://quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-new-yorker-1-world-trade-center-new.html http://quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-new-y... so you earn about 7,500 for the short story. The award that has paid out the most for a short story ever evidently paid 30 thousand pounds https://lithub.com/read-the-story-that-just-won-the-biggest-short-story-prize-in-the-world/ https://lithub.com/read-the-story-that-just-won-the-biggest-... You may not know this but very few stories win awards, awards being structured to be relatively rare. Obviously if someone has not one an award for their short story you may consider that their work has been a complete and utter failure, but even so... let us consider if someone sold to the New Yorker, which hopefully you will agree is likely to be one of the better paying markets and evidently by your calculation one of the short story markets that publishes things that are not complete and utter failures (because it pays more than others right?), and if they then won the highest paying award ever they would have another 30,000, now assuming this short story is part of a collection of short stories and the author is really popular I think we can say this short story in the collection makes about 10,000 per year. in 16 years that is - for one of the most successful short stories in the world - 197,500 dollars. on edit: I really find it amusing that HN of all places really wants to limit how people can make money on what is an entrepreneurial activity - sitting down and writing a story and then trying to sell it.