How much money it would cost to take an aspirin tablet, you say, Carl? The
German chemist who created aspirin and patented it made plenty of money on his
new chemical derivation of salicylic acid, believe me, for himself and his
company! Have run into him three or four times lately in my reading. He worked
for the Bayer company, which may seem to be a ubiquitous American concern, but
started out life in Germany between the two World Wars. Hoffman, I think his
name was. When the patent ran out, Bayer tried to sue to keep the name
"aspirin" for the product proprietary, but didn't win the suit. So, aspirin it
is wherever it is manufactured now. But you will notice that Velcro is no
longer called by that name, now that its patent ran out--now it's "hook and
loop" since many companies can produce the material.
And as one whose works appear on the Internet, I am concerned for copyright
infringements of my writing, even though I myself may not make any money on the
enterprise since that's the way Christopher Tolkien set up the Trust that
governs what we fanfiction writers who primarily write Tolkien fanfic can get
from our avocation--monetarily, nothing. When illegal mirror sites began
copying the FanFiction.Net site and inserting their own advertising, we
fanfiction writers began inundating those who govern such actions with
complaints and protests. We're not here to have our work used to help everyone
make a buck off our creativity.
And imagine what professional writers would get if their work weren't
copyrighted, if any press who liked the work could produce their own copies
without making any remuneration to the original author--they'd get nothing.
It's one thing when the original writer is dead and gone; but when a writer is
alive and a starving artist and the press he's contracted with can be scooped by
any other publishing house who doesn't have an agreement to pay royalties to the
original author, most people will go with those who either charge less per copy
or who produce fancy collectors' editions. If they, too, don't pay royalties
the author remains a starving artist.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!