No, I'm saying that you can't attribute any significant percent of the value of a Star Wars toy sold today to George Lucas. If Star Wars had not continued after the 1980 films, these toys would not keep selling so much today.

The post I replied to allocated all of the monetary value of the Star Wars branding of a toy to George Lucas personally, which I think is obviously wrong.

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groundzeros2015 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Hmm, what about JK Rowling and LeBron James where the vast majority of their value is explicitly going to their publisher and they keep only a small percentage. Their tiny portion is a billion after everyone else takes most of it!

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well_ackshually 5 hours ago | parent [-]

JK Rowling, the proofreaders, the reviewers, the printers, the marketing, the librarians... Everyone in that list is in effect getting stolen from by the publishers, yes.

in the same way that Lebron didn't go where with his own feet, he benefited from coaches, support, doctors, nutrionists & cooks, all dedicated to putting everything into this one man. Do you think merely being a freak of nature nets you a billion ?

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blanched 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Right, and even if we assume Lebron accomplished his entire basketball career by himself and that his salary is 100% “earned”, his salary didn’t net him a billion dollars.

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groundzeros2015 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

you’re only strengthening the argument that people deserve asymmetric compensation. LeBron and the NBA have a symbiotic relationship where both of them make more money because they exist. And I would guess the NBA made a lot more money than LeBron.

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CPLX 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Also the idea that playing on a basketball team is a good counter to the argument that everyone is on a team seems pretty odd for obvious reasons.

	▲	groundzeros2015 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Are you sure the root of your concern isn’t that people differ in ability and value? Can you quickly break down which players on the team are fairly compensated and which are oppressed by LeBron?

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groundzeros2015 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Once again, the publisher gave her something like 5-10% of sales and kept 90% to cover those costs and she is still a billionaire!!! So is your real beef with the publisher?

	▲	well_ackshually 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. And once the publishers have paid their fair share, JKR also will, and she won't be a billionaire anymore.