Tell that to the guy who wrote MS-DOS and was paid $10,000 flat rate. The guy never even saw a penny a copy for the billions of installations of it over the years...
More like the business practices of Alan Klein or the suits at Atlantic records who stole the US publishing money on the Beatles, the Stones, and the Stax Records artists when the slipped them revised "contracts".
More like the business practices of Alan Klein or the suits at Atlantic records who stole the US publishing money on the Beatles, the Stones, and the Stax Records artists when the slipped them revised "contracts".
Uh, yeah...and?
I'm not denying that creative types get screwed out of what's owed to them. IF your examples did not sign contracts enabling the people buying their creations to do what they did (and that is an "if" that needs to be considered), then they were screwed. No doubt about it...it happens. But that doesn't make it right, moral or legal.
My point is that when someone steals someone else's song (or any other creation) -- be it by the label screwing the artist out of money, or some Generation.com punk illegally sharing songs -- it's theft. Just as stealing a car, shoplifting a bag of chips from the Kwiki-Mart, or making a bootleg copy of software at work, those who illegally share downloaded music are thieves. In all those cases, someone is taking something they don't own from someone who does, and not paying them for it.
So whether it's Bill Gates, Lou Reed, the guy who wrote DOS, or a struggling local band, if they own the rights to their creations, they are entitled to make money from each copy sold or shared. But in this digital world, coming up with a way to enforce those rights proving difficult.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!