4 ms·

>Because her kids could do absolutely nothing and live off of royalty checks or whatever her media empire generates and still be very very rich Sure, that coul

>Because her kids could do absolutely nothing and live off of royalty checks or whatever her media empire generates and still be very very rich Sure, that could happen. But it happens all the time with drycleaners and steel mills and car dealerships and whatever else too. It takes a huge amount of work, not just creative, but business work, to get build something that lasts like that. What about brands? What about people who build a large brand in retail or fast food or cars or whatever? They can leave the fruits of their brand building to their children. Why is the Harry Potter brand the odd man out? And there's certainly a lot of work to be done keeping the business going. Someone is running the James Bond empire, the Disney empire, the Tolkien empire. They don't run themselves. Actual work is involved. Anyway, like I said, I don't totally buy the argument, but it's not completely invalid either.

cbd1984 12y ago
> Why is the Harry Potter brand the odd man out? Because it can keep ticking along without producing a single new thing. Coca-Cola, to remain worth anything, must at least keep producing new bottles of soda. > And there's certainly a lot of work to be done keeping the business going. Someone is running the James Bond empire, the Disney empire, the Tolkien empire. They don't run themselves. Actual work is involved. Actual work which nobody but the heirs will see the benefits of, assuming what I have assumed. Now, it's possible I'm completely out to sea on this, and that if nobody keeps making new works in the Harry Potter universe the brand and franchise will die. But the mere fact copyright law makes such self-sustaining non-productive empires possible is irksome.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  That's a meaningless argument. You're equating new bottles of soda (which are like copies of a book) with new works (which would be more like new flavors of cola). I would imagine, incidentally, that Harry Potter will continue to spawn new work, in the same way that Star Wars has spawned a variety of new fictional works in the form of animated series, videogames, book tie-ins and so on which are all ancillary to the 'original' 6 films (soon to be 7 and later 8 and 9). As well as that there are all the other non-fictional ancillaries, like books about Star Wars, from the production of the film to catalogs of all the different spaceships and robots etc. etc. I'm not at all sure that copyright should extend beyond the life of the author but I think you should acknowledge that while all the stuff above serves a marketing function it also provides utility to hardcore fans of the original works. Actual work which nobody but the heirs will see the benefits of, assuming what I have assumed. Viewers and consumers get a benefit from the careful transfer of original works to new media and the production of new ancillary media. Transfer of existing work to a new medium is not as simple as 'copy originals_star_wars_scan TO 4k_project_template upres'. Although it makes up a tiny part of the consumer cost, format transfers generally require a huge amount of work by skilled professionals, the cost of which can run into the millions. On a film like Star Wars it's a vanishingly small amount of the revenue a new release format can generate, but indirectly that subsidizes (through technological debt) the cost to do similar work for much less popular films, eg the very high quality reissues of substantially less popular films via brands like the Criterion Collection, which maintains very high technical standards for art films with a relatively small audience.

cbd1984 12y ago

> Why is the Harry Potter brand the odd man out? Because it can keep ticking along without producing a single new thing. Coca-Cola, to remain worth anything, must at least keep producing new bottles of soda. > And there's certainly a lot of work to be done keeping the business going. Someone is running the James Bond empire, the Disney empire, the Tolkien empire. They don't run themselves. Actual work is involved. Actual work which nobody but the heirs will see the benefits of, assuming what I have assumed. Now, it's possible I'm completely out to sea on this, and that if nobody keeps making new works in the Harry Potter universe the brand and franchise will die. But the mere fact copyright law makes such self-sustaining non-productive empires possible is irksome.

anigbrowl 12y ago
That's a meaningless argument. You're equating new bottles of soda (which are like copies of a book) with new works (which would be more like new flavors of cola). I would imagine, incidentally, that Harry Potter will continue to spawn new work, in the same way that Star Wars has spawned a variety of new fictional works in the form of animated series, videogames, book tie-ins and so on which are all ancillary to the 'original' 6 films (soon to be 7 and later 8 and 9). As well as that there are all the other non-fictional ancillaries, like books about Star Wars, from the production of the film to catalogs of all the different spaceships and robots etc. etc. I'm not at all sure that copyright should extend beyond the life of the author but I think you should acknowledge that while all the stuff above serves a marketing function it also provides utility to hardcore fans of the original works. Actual work which nobody but the heirs will see the benefits of, assuming what I have assumed. Viewers and consumers get a benefit from the careful transfer of original works to new media and the production of new ancillary media. Transfer of existing work to a new medium is not as simple as 'copy originals_star_wars_scan TO 4k_project_template upres'. Although it makes up a tiny part of the consumer cost, format transfers generally require a huge amount of work by skilled professionals, the cost of which can run into the millions. On a film like Star Wars it's a vanishingly small amount of the revenue a new release format can generate, but indirectly that subsidizes (through technological debt) the cost to do similar work for much less popular films, eg the very high quality reissues of substantially less popular films via brands like the Criterion Collection, which maintains very high technical standards for art films with a relatively small audience.