3 ms·

This isn't frightening to me. If you own the rights to your work, then you should be able to sell it to whomever. If you don't own the rights, then you are most

This isn't frightening to me. If you own the rights to your work, then you should be able to sell it to whomever. If you don't own the rights, then you are most likely being paid by someone else to produce the work, in which case this also isn't scary. If I paid someone to produce a work, I would surely want to be able to sell the rights in the future. It would be scarier to me if this wasn't the case. Imagine writing your first novel, and then a large corporation hires a writer to produce a sequel. How many Game of Thrones sequels would there be already? I'd rather George R.R. Martin have the time to create instead of having to compete.

a3_nm 12y ago
> How many Game of Thrones sequels would there be already? I don't find this scary. Presumably people should favor the ones written by the original author, because they would expect it to be more true to the spirit that they liked in the earlier works. However, if some people prefer to read works by competing authors, then that would be good for them, and too bad for Martin. The notion of being able to assess property rights over a universe of fiction (beyond the original copyright interpretation of ownership of the actual work and adaptations of the work in its fixed form) are a new and dangerous notion, I think. Lots of artistic creativity is discouraged or impossible today because of the unclear legal status of fan fiction, or of works that are inspired by another work but cannot afford to pay a license for them. I find this far more worrying than the consequences of depriving rightholders from exclusivity rights on the universes created by authors.
icebraining 12y ago
If I paid someone to produce a work, I would surely want to be able to sell the rights in the future. You can sell the copyright, but you can't sell your creativity, life experiences, or anything else which allowed you to make that work of art. Having the money to buy the rights to make a sequel doesn't grant you the ability of making a good one, but it does prevent everyone else from trying, even if they might be better at it.

a3_nm 12y ago

> How many Game of Thrones sequels would there be already? I don't find this scary. Presumably people should favor the ones written by the original author, because they would expect it to be more true to the spirit that they liked in the earlier works. However, if some people prefer to read works by competing authors, then that would be good for them, and too bad for Martin. The notion of being able to assess property rights over a universe of fiction (beyond the original copyright interpretation of ownership of the actual work and adaptations of the work in its fixed form) are a new and dangerous notion, I think. Lots of artistic creativity is discouraged or impossible today because of the unclear legal status of fan fiction, or of works that are inspired by another work but cannot afford to pay a license for them. I find this far more worrying than the consequences of depriving rightholders from exclusivity rights on the universes created by authors.

icebraining 12y ago

If I paid someone to produce a work, I would surely want to be able to sell the rights in the future. You can sell the copyright, but you can't sell your creativity, life experiences, or anything else which allowed you to make that work of art. Having the money to buy the rights to make a sequel doesn't grant you the ability of making a good one, but it does prevent everyone else from trying, even if they might be better at it.