"Brett" == Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@dimetrodon.demon.co.uk> writes:
Brett> Sebastien Blondeel <blondeel@clipper.ens.fr> writes >> 2/ very few people live with their music >> >> How many French people make their living with the income they >> get from the mere sales of their records? books? (and derived >> products) out of 60 million people? I would say just a few >> hundreds, maybe thousands. A little more if you kick in people >> living with concerts but then this looks more like a "real >> job". Most books are written by people who have a "normal" job >> on the side. Most music bands people have a job on the side. Brett> Whilst it may be true that most books are written by Brett> part-time writers, it is also true that hardly anyone reads Brett> most books. I expect that most books read are written by Brett> full-time writers, or writers who could be full-time if Brett> they chose to be. e.g. books by Terry Pratchett make up Brett> about 1% of UK fiction sales, the impact on the supply of Brett> good fiction if he still had to have a day-job would be Brett> significant, as he would not be able to write nearly as Brett> many books. >> So less copyright "protection" would not mean less >> creation. And this "support the artist" idea is bogus: 1/ most >> artists don't benefit from it Brett> Most artists don't benefit from it because most of them Brett> just aren't much good, so few people read their books. >> 2/ don't deprive millions for the sake a a few tens Brett> Don't deprive millions of readers for the sake of a Brett> relatively small number who want to read poor quality older Brett> books. The really good stuff, the stuff people are actually Brett> interested in reading, tends to stay in print. Those artists will probably make more than enough money in the fist few years (ten?) and should be encouraged to publish more books just not giving them any more money after the initial period. If the copyright terms lasted just a short period, probably we would have more novels of J.D. Salinger. In this case, long term copyrights have served just the opposite of encouraging more literary production. Carlo Traverso