Tolkien deserves much more of my money than the author of the cookbook I bought a Costco and never read, but with single purchase they get roughly the same amount of economic value from me.
(For the purposes of this example, Tolkien is still alive)
I think in a thriving society it would be fine for consumers to enjoy a value surplus from the products and services they buy. Having every bit of value a consumer obtains from a product monetized by the producer is a great way to move wealth from the bottom of the economic ladder to the top; it's a society of scarcity and not abundance. How did the popular imagination go from bountiful societies like the one in Star Trek to ideas like "You will own nothing and you will be happy" where you pay rent for everything you use.
It's particularly galling that these ideas are spreading to information products, which would be freely copyable and available to everyone - a public treasure like no other - if not for artificial restrictions on such activities. I remember the "information wants to be free" attitude of hackers in the early 2000s. But now it's ok if we pay per instance for reading a book? Crazy stuff.
“You‘ll never guess what Mrs Jones told me about Agnes’ husband“
“Go on?”
“Well, she was sitting at the table next to him in the cafe and overheard him saying he wanted to make Agnes happy!”
“No!”
“Yes! Can you believe it?”
“The bastard!”
For example, if I told said "you will live naked in a ditch and you will be happy", the "you will be happy" part reads like a dictate about how you should feel about the "living in a ditch" situation. The obvious disconnect between telling people they will be paying monthly dues to a bunch of rent-seekers and that they will somehow feel happy about this situation even though it sounds, frankly, awful has the same effect.
I haven't noticed this at all. Where are people talking about being happy as an evil goal?
The phrase "you will own nothing and be happy" is dystopian because it's not really saying that you'll be happy. It's more like a threat: "we will monetize every aspect of your existence and you better like it".
Perhaps so but why?
Tolkien was educated at mainly public expense and his wherewithal and worldliness that enabled him to write his novels came from the society in which he lived.
That is, he was intimately coupled to his society without which he would not have been able to write his books. He owes society some payback for what it gave him.
Tolkien has rights that need protection but they are not exclusive morally speaking. That the law gives him full and exclusive rights is an unfortunate product of history when Victor Hugo and cronies forced the Berne Convention in the days before the reading public had any idea that it was about to be shafted.
That unfair treaty has to be made fair despite protestations from greedy publishers. If not, they will eventually lose out because every new computer technology only makes it easier to copy works. Even now it's a cinch, in 20 years it'll be so easy that if any text or video has any public exposure it'll be copied by consumers as a matter of course—copyright holders bedamed. (Think Google Glass—like tech that captures everything a human sees in high definition. If a human sees it then it will be copied automatically. Right, copyright is on the wall without major reform.)
What we are witnessing from these greedy publishing bastards are the last gasps of the old elitist copyright order. If they were smart they would realize that they need to be much more reasonable and consolatory to even survive.
So that economic resources get directed towards creating books that people actually read and enjoy enough to keep reading.
At present, writers and authors are incentivised to merely sell as many copies as possible because that's how they get paid. If they were directly incentivised to create books people enjoy reading we might have more books that are enjoyable to read.
> Tolkien was educated at mainly public expense and his wherewithal and worldliness that enabled him to write his novels came from the society in which he lived.
That can be addressed by using the tax system to pay back society from his wealth, but it's a separate discussion.
> That the law gives him full and exclusive rights is an unfortunate product of history when Victor Hugo and cronies forced the Berne Convention in the days before the reading public had any idea that it was about to be shafted.
I'd also prefer a world where books were more open because I reckon the increase in creativity from millions of people modifying stories would outweigh the loss of economic incentives for original authors.
But that's not the world we live in. To the extend that hard copyrights exist that force us to pay to read we might as well structure the payments in a way that motivates the authors to write in a way that is more beneficial to us.
Policing copyright in its current form will become such a burden that it will force change, and with coming AI advances even publisher's editors will become redundant. Technology will make publishers much less important.
Authors ought to see the writing on the wall and start planning to deal directly with their readers. As you say, that would aid in creating books that people want to read.
My personal opinion is that authors will have more to fear from AI than copyright violations. I'm not against writers being given their fair dues but I am against unfair copyright laws.
What concerns me most is that if we're not careful we'll end up reading books and viewing videos created by AI—and I don't want that nor would author/creators. I'm defending human creators here, I don't want them replaced by machines. That's why it's more important than ever that authors and readers have a more solid and direct relationship—one that's much more than just a monetary alliance.
That is, until your phone apps start scanning works automatically to detect copyrighted material before allowing you to store it on their cloud-storage
And why use a phone and locked-in apps? I suggest you read how I use my phone now, in 20 years I'll have even more control over my data: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=35243759
Also check my comment underneath in reply to a commentator.
You're obviously of the smartphone generation, I'm pre that so I think outside that box. In 20 years things will be very different and that doesn't necessarily mean that Big Tech will still rule the roost.
But even if you're on the rational consumer mindset and want to give the JRR estate an extra penny shaving per word you read, are you really comfortable with the level of intrusive monitoring of your habits this will entail? You want the publisher to know how many times you open their book, which passages you read most, what time of day, etc. to charge you appropriately? What if JRR wants you to pay extra to read about Tom Bombadil because you can't just watch the movie about him, isn't that fair if people are willing to pay?
I might be ok with renting a book if more of the money went to the author. Theoretically it could work out well for everyone. A lot of cookbooks would be a great option. Rent them for a month or do for, say, $1? Cheaper access to books for a period of time, like O'Reilly's Safari for technical books.
But I don't think that's how it's going to work out if renting is the only way to get books. I think that everyone will for forced into onerous terms of the publishers get too much power.
Cookbooks if anything seem more useful to buy since they can sit in or near your kitchen and you can grab them and use them. Whereas you read a novel only every so often past the first read?
You're perfectly free to send him a check for the additional portion of your money you think he's entitled to.
Only if they're priced the same. They don't have to be. Tolkein could charge much more than the cookbook if he wished.
I don't see that your point is dependent on renting vs buying. It's just about pricing.