I guess it must be a great relief to many in the self-promoting business that death is no longer a barrier to building your fame and fortune.
“Colonel” Tom Parker, the long-term manager of Elvis Presley, famously said on his star property’s demise that it “didn’t change anything”. Indeed, Elvis still regularly tops the list of the richest dead celebs. Thankfully, Col Parker has also passed into the next world and is no longer benefitting from that fact.
My attitude that money ain’t worth having if you’re not around to enjoy it is, apparently, not widely shared. There are still plenty of people who want to cash in on the work of people who no longer have a say in how their intellectual property is handled.
In the past few days, it’s been announced that there will be a new installment in the Millennium trilogy of books by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. This is despite the fact that there are already three books in the series — generally the limit for a trilogy, unless the author’s name is Douglas Adams — and Mr Larsson has been dead for many years, and will remain in that state for the foreseeable future.
Not so long ago, we saw a “new” novel by the very elderly and unwell Harper Lee, who never saw fit to publish the work during her 50 or 60 lucid years since writing it.
For goodness’ sake, can’t we just let sleeping authors be?
