Sorry my fault, by textbook I meant novel. If authors of novels would want to work without publishers they could already do that today, no? I've heard of cover bands, but those do pay a fee in order to be allowed to play other bands' songs live and they need the artist's/publisher's consent to publish recordings of their cover songs, which probably is paid for as well, I guess.

Corporations selling artists work after only paying the artist once is a flaw in the contract these two parties agreed upon and is often successfully sued against later. So this is and should be illegal. Of course individual artists might not have the finances to fight the battle against a publisher which is a problem.

I am all against coprorations and companies making money off of others people work and I see a lot of potential improvements to be made about copyright and intellectual property. But despite trying and wanting it to, I do not see it working out without any protection of creative work. But maybe that's just my lack of understanding things (low IQ score), as indicated by the graphic in the shared article. I think it is important to separate art from knowledge though, which should be paid for by the collective and free to anyone to access.