Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 162.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000 19:36:54 +0100
From: Paul Brians <brians@mail.wsu.edu>
Subject: Re; Interesting wrinkle on King's venture
R. Polk Wagner wrote:
>[Stephen King's] explicitly asking people to pay for his future services. The
>traditional theory of intellectual property would not consider this
>possibility. Classic intellectual property theory holds that producers must
>get paid for the works they've already created, not works they've yet to
>produce."
Hasn't Mr. Wagner ever heard of an advance? I believe Mark Twain sold some
of his works by advance subscription through canvassers. Writers like King
take it as a given that they will be paid vast sums by publishers before
setting pen to paper. Many such paid-for works are in fact never written
when writers fail to follow through with the promised work. King isn't
doing anything so very radical by asking to be paid in advance; he's simply
cutting out the middle party--the publisher.
-- Paul Brians, Department of English Washington State University Pullman, WA 99164-5020 brians@wsu.edu http://www.wsu.edu/~brians
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