MERP receives a C&D from Warner Bros

Users who are viewing this thread

Jhessail said:
Unfortunately Ilex, that's now how it works. By your logic, every case of piracy is a lost sale - exactly as Ubisoft and others have claimed - whereas even a child knows that's not true.
This must be that female logic that science has yet to prove to exist.

It's precisely how it works. If WB is the only company allowed to produce Tolkien related stuff they can charge a damn sight more for it than they could if everyone could make Tolkien related stuff. It's basic supply and demand or scarcity; the less there is of something, the more valuable it tends to be.
 
I strongly believe that when one dies, all of his/her intellectual works should lose any copyright protection they may posses.
 
So you are a writer. You get married, have kids. Sell books, make some money. But then, BAM, dead. Your wife and kid lose their income. Kid sells crack, wife sells herself.

You are a bookshop owner. You get married, have kids. Sell books, make some money. But then, BAM, dead. Your wife marries your best friend and spends all your money in Caribbeans happily ever after.
 
Kleidophoros said:
So you are a writer. You get married, have kids. Sell books, make some money. But then, BAM, dead. Your wife and kid lose their income. Kid sells crack, wife sells herself.

You are a bookshop owner. You get married, have kids. Sell books, make some money. But then, BAM, dead. Your wife marries your best friend and spends all your money in Caribbeans happily ever after.

What kind of logic is that?

I'm pretty sure that your wife and kids could take care of themselves if you die a natural death at seventy or so, give or take a decade. Furthermore, if you're a full-time writer, your spouse are more or less the one who sponsors you, not the other way around.
 
This kind of logic; I am a writer and I have no income other than books; I didn't buy a restaurant, a supermarket or a bookshop.
I have a steady income, not too much but we live by. And no, wife doesn't sponsor me.
Just like a book owner not losing any assets after his death I shouldn't be losing any either.
 
After a lifetime of writing, your children had better be capable of caring for themselves, or you've failed as a parent. And your wife will live fine off of retirement benefits, etc.
 
What I mean is that it's been more or less proven that unless you make a big break, you simply aren't going to make ends meet as a pure writer. You can spend months working on a short story and see it rejected everywhere; even worse for novellas and novels. In the meantime, your actual "writing" is not paid. You don't receive any salary for that, and most of the time because you can't sell it you aren't getting any revenue either. So a writer who earns his living entirely out of writing is either a world or at least nationally famous celebrity in and of itself, or is saying that as an euphemism for being unemployed and living off parents/spouse/lover/social security.

Source? I've been in contact with the local writer's community for almost four years now. I know for a fact that pretty much all of them have their "day jobs", and most of their writing is a passion and something of a vanity project. In my case, I wouldn't mind all that much if some people decide to steal my work - if I do well enough to warrant people bothering to even imitate it, I have done something right and can die without regret.

Aaalso, I notice we've wandered too far off topic. Sorry for that - this hits me pretty close to home, is all.

Bgfan said:
After a lifetime of writing, your children had better be capable of caring for themselves, or you've failed as a parent. And your wife will live fine off of retirement benefits, etc.

That, and if you are successful enough you would have left your family two important things - fame and a bit of money. Copyrighting works beyond the grave is just a way to let your loved ones milk your fictional worlds after you're dead and buried, hardly what I'd be looking for.
 
Bgfan said:
After a lifetime of writing, your children had better be capable of caring for themselves, or you've failed as a parent. And your wife will live fine off of retirement benefits, etc.
I think it makes sense that the family maintains publishing rights to the books. The actual rights to the ideas behind it should be a separate entity altogether though. The world would be a dark and dreary place if the Cthulhu mythos were kept under the same lock and key as the LotR franchise.
 
So if I am a bookowner and go ahaed and buy, say two houses and a farm, with some savings my wife and kids can happily milk them for rent but they shall not milk my books if I am a writer? They didn't do anything for them houses when I was alive, they won't do anything for them after I am dead.

What's wrong with being a part-time writer? When you are a bookowner you shouldn't be making any money off of stock exchange?

Source for what..?

I can't understand how you can't see what's wrong with your thinking. This is my job, my life; I spend a life writing. Not selling insurance or coffee and donuts. I can leave my donut shop to my kid but not the rights to my books?
 
We can agree to disagree then.

I have always viewed writing as a career where you serve the world by telling a story. Being read and appreciated for your work is reward enough, and all that about copyright and royalties cheapens it, and deters people who would otherwise help you spread your words for free, i.e. fanfiction authors and modders.

Then again, I am a privileged rich kid who has no pressure to earn money until I've finished my studies, so there is also that.
 
Being able to tell a story to the world and happy little kids reciting your stories in the fields filled with flowers and butterflies and rainbows are cool and all but come back when you have to pay the mortgage with the last monies in your account and then you have to eat pasta for a whole week.
 
That's why you have day jobs and don't rely entirely on your income from books and short stories which may or may not come depending entirely on whether corporate bigwigs decide to buy your work or not. That's also the reason why my entire extended family greatly disapproves of my wanting to pursue a writing career, and I've lived long enough to know they aren't wrong.

In other words, writing is never going to make ends meet until you make your big break, which depends on a whole lot of things, many of which you don't really have control over.
 
I don't see a problem with being a writer, but it would be a good idea to have a journalism degree or something else to pull in the money.
 
Bgfan said:
I don't see a problem with being a writer, but it would be a good idea to have a journalism degree or something else to pull in the money.
Good idea or not, there's no reason a writer should be forced to make money in a way that a composer or director wouldn't have to, just because they have no control over their work after they die.

Besides, if it was the case that writers had no control over their work from the underworld, all you'd see is writers co-crediting their wives and children. Stupid problem, stupidly solved.
 
Back
Top Bottom