As Richard Nash continues to explain his still-in-development publishing house of the future, he puts forth what may be his boldest idea yet in the newest post on his blog, rnash.com: “No more life-of-the-copyright contracts. Instead: three year contracts.”

As Nash explains,

… most publishers have accepted they’re not going to make money publishing your book. They’re publishing your book and a bunch of other books like it so they can have exclusive rights over as much intellectual property as possible. Such that if, three or five or nine years down the road, you win the NBA, or the Orange, or there’s a movie, or an Oprah pick, your whole backlist starts to sell but they don’t have to pay you one single extra red percent in royalties.

That’s where their profits come from, from being able to NOT have to renegotiate royalties when your books start selling better than they expected. …

So why are three year contracts a better deal — at least, for authors if not for publishers?

My wife’s an intellectual property lawyer and deals all the time with negotiating licenses for intellectual property in fashion, cosmetics, software, design. She’s negotiated for or against DC Comics, Disney, Mark Ecko, Chanel, Michael Kors, J-Lo, the Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali estates and so forth in creating apparel lines, fragrances, resorts. These transactions don’t involve 100 year licenses, or 20 year licenses. They’re 2, 3, 5 year licenses, the underlying philosophy being that you’re together in business to maximize the revenues from the intellectual property and if the underlying value increases, you’ll renegotiate when the license is up for renewal.

Authors deserve the same terms.