Many things are only popular for a relatively short period of time. If someone wants to wait until the copyright period is over to do an adaptation, the source material may no longer be that popular, and the adaptation, even without having paid a single royalty, will be unprofitable.
Ok but you’re gonna have a hard time convincing me that (morally) HBO should have been able to make game of thrones without cutting a check to the guy who created it
What about the lord of the rings movies? Tolkien didn't get paid from that, his heirs did.
What about Shakespeare.
What about the Brothers Grimm. Should Disnay have to pay for those fairy tales?
In the end every creative work stands on the shoulders of giants. We should reward creators for contributing to our culture but this notion that they should be able to own their creations way past when they become popular is absurd.
I'm not saying it'd be good for HBO to do that, only that they could. Regardless of whether or not they should, edge cases like GoT's success should not control the outcome for everyone and everything else.
