You already live in one. Publishing house shareholders get most of the money, even for online books. If you pirated the book and donated to the author, they'd actually get more money.
> You already live in one. Publishing house shareholders get most of the money, even for online books.
Doesn't this apply to every mass-market creative endeavor - software engineering included? There a whole lot of machinery sitting between {code|book} author and the paying consumers, leveraging efficiency of scale and demanding a pound of flesh in return. Agents, editors, lawyers, proof readers, marketers, book cover artists, sales people, type-setters, and requisite admin support staff all of them necessary to publish and distribute books at scale. If you think authors don't need an entire industry behind them, try sifting through the self-published dreck on Amazon.
And it is pretty clear who would be first to exploit system where authors don't have copy rights. That is Amazon to start with followed by all other big companies who can effectively distribute the works.
The vast, VAST majority of money that an author makes is from their advance. It is exceedingly rare for a book to sell even enough to cover that advance, and even rarer for it to have sales strong enough that the author sees meaningful, life changing residuals.
>> I don't want to live in a society where authors don't get paid, so the laws are just fine.
> The vast, VAST majority of money that an author makes is from their advance. It is exceedingly rare for a book to sell even enough to cover that advance, and even rarer for it to have sales strong enough that the author sees meaningful, life changing residuals.
This is how author advances would work in a world without copyright: authors would self-publish their books, and there would be no advances. If the book proved to be popular and successful, all the major distribution platforms would "pirate" it and pay them nothing. No conceivable DRM would save the author's income, because the platforms can afford to pay people to manually key in the work.
And why should I even offer you an advance if I’m not going to make any money off your book. Heck, why should I invest any money in editing your book for that matter.
I’m not sure it’s exceedingly rare for an author to not make some beer money on top of single dollar advances but it’s not a full-time job for many authors. It mostly works to support the day job or as a hobby.
But many authors might as well self-publish today. I mostly have.