Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo (Jeffrey Tucker)
- Highlight Loc. 1673-78 | Added on Monday, December 26, 2011, 06:18 PM
Now, in a free market, there is nothing wrong with an upfront payment for first-run rights to a book or movie. It is by being first past the post that profits are made. This was how artists were paid in the Renaissance: not through royalties, as if the artists owns the image or work, but through a payment that comes with granting some third party the opportunity to be the first to reveal the work. In the 19th century, for example, British authors would sell their manuscripts to American publishers, who could not copyright the work (there was no such thing as international copyright in those days). It turned out that the authors made more money through this means of payment than through royalties in their own country.
