| > keep having to pay the guy if you want copies. This is the key point. If you hire an actor for a live stage show, it is a one time fee. The live show happens, the tickets are sold, the actor gets paid, and at the end of the day everyone goes home. But what if you recorded that show? You’ve now made a copy of a performance. When you sell a copy of that recording, you’ve made a copy of the actors work. But you only paid for the single live show, so or course there should be some kind of further compensation. The original payment was to see their one-time performance. The actor still owns the artistic/intellectual rights to their interpretation/performance. If you want a copy of that, they need to get paid. For software developers, they are paid specifically to create intellectual property and as part of their employment agreement, any IP rights belong to the company. But this is part of their contract. It’s all in how the employment agreements are setup. Any actor/photographer/etc could be hired to a contract that would allow unlimited copies without royalties. It happens all the time. But. if you are an actor with enough clout, such a contract would be very expensive. I’d also imagine stock photo shoots work this way. The models are paid a one-time fee with an unlimited release. But, I think the key part is that contracts with royalties are cheaper (cashflow) for the producers. The actors get paid a small fixed amount with a percentage of the ongoing profits. The alternative would be a large payout initially with no share of the profits. Both contracts are possible, but the former spreads the risk (and rewards) across a larger pool of people. Whether or not this applies to Apple and foundational use of software is a different story, but it’s pretty well established for arts. |