Here’s an interesting quote from artist Nathaniel Stern recently interviewed on iCommons: “I think we need to recognize that it’s not necessarily at odds to both give away the content and sell the object. Art that is in the public interest can be distributed widely, and the same art can be a luxury item for sale.”
This applies equally well to books, movies, etc, etc. You can give it away and sell it too. The one is the content and the other is the object. Of course, someone else can come along and sell your content as an object too. But if I am given the choice as a consumer, I will buy the object from the original author, even if it costs a little more. Wouldn’t you?
Exactly. I think we lose out on so much because of the stringent copyright laws. One of the most popular musicals on Broadway right now is Wicked. It is a work that is built upon the work of another, and is a whole lot of fun. But they had to wait until the work came out in the public domain. Wizard of Oz came into the public domain 56 years after it was written, but now work takes even longer to do so. How fun would it be to see what Steven King does with the Harry Potter world? We’ll never know, because King will be long dead before HP is every ready to be ‘built upon’ or ‘reused’.
As an author, I completely agree with the notion of giving away content, while still ‘selling the object’.