Re: CNI-COPYRIGHT digest 1287

> I create with the expectation and hope that my work will someday
> enrich my heirs. Without that expectation, I'd have to be very
> selfish to devote myself to such a difficult path which has required
> sacrifice from every member of my family. ...

> Creators are often driven by their muse which means everyone in the
> family has to take up the slack to allow Mom or Dad time to finish a
> new work. The children and spouse of an original creator often have
> to make financial sacrifices while s/he produces work which may not
> sell because the world isn't quite ready for it. ...

It's great that you're so dedicated to writing, but this viewpoint seems to me not very realistic. Writers are not the only people who make personal and financial sacrifices while working toward a goal, and longer copyright terms are unlikely to make a writer's heirs rich.

I know plenty of people who've worked incredibly hard trying to start a business. Often they put all their assets into the company and take little or no salary. Often their families suffer, sometimes to the point of divorce. Sometimes a company succeeds and makes a lot of money, but more frequently it sputters along just barely surviving or completely fails. I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for these guys, since they knew what they were signing up for, but their dedication to their goals and their personal sacrifices are just as great as a writer's.

I also don't see a lot of old manuscripts being published. All the stuff I write (which is not very literary) is published promtly or not at all. If a mss is unpublishable now, it'll probably still be unpublishable 50 or 100 years from now. Also, most books that were published 50 or 100 years ago aren't publishable any more, since I don't see very many pre-1953 books still in print, whether in or out of copyright. A 100 year old manuscript found in a trunk is likely to be a personal treasure to the descendants of the author, but it's not likely to be a money maker unless the author happens to be Mark Twain, A. A. Milne, or Edith Wharton (all three of whom did OK while they were alive.)

If it's important for someone to write, by all means write, but please write for personal satisfaction and, with luck, some financial success in the present, not for implausible dreams of 22nd century riches.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl[_at_]iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner "A book is a sneeze." - E.B. White, on the writing of Charlotte's Web Received on Tue Feb 04 2003 - 06:46:54 GMT