(While the third party didn't have to write your work, they nevertheless would have to do a lot of work themselves to make a profit from it.)
This is both bad and wrong. I will attempt to explain why for each.
It is bad on the level that it creates an exchange of sweat of the brow work with originality. That is to say if I copied someone else's book in the more laborious way, I'm more allowed to copy it and make profit. As Justice O'Connor said in Feist, "The sine qua non of copyright is originality." Hard work does not equal good or useful work-- ask Sisyphus.
It is wrong for two reasons. The first is that roll-your-own publishing options are available to an author, and all someone would have to do to make a profit is copy your book from lulu, blurb or whatever ebook publisher you use and post it again with a lower price. The second is that, even if republishing was its own difficult endeavor, the gain a copycat has is simply waiting for success. A publisher who spends money on editing, typesetting, marketing and binding must print a number of books before turning a profit. A copycat publisher can simply wait until it appears a book will be successful before undercutting. This is a drastic reduction in cost and income risk, and it's definitely unfair.
This is both bad and wrong. I will attempt to explain why for each.
It is bad on the level that it creates an exchange of sweat of the brow work with originality. That is to say if I copied someone else's book in the more laborious way, I'm more allowed to copy it and make profit. As Justice O'Connor said in Feist, "The sine qua non of copyright is originality." Hard work does not equal good or useful work-- ask Sisyphus.
It is wrong for two reasons. The first is that roll-your-own publishing options are available to an author, and all someone would have to do to make a profit is copy your book from lulu, blurb or whatever ebook publisher you use and post it again with a lower price. The second is that, even if republishing was its own difficult endeavor, the gain a copycat has is simply waiting for success. A publisher who spends money on editing, typesetting, marketing and binding must print a number of books before turning a profit. A copycat publisher can simply wait until it appears a book will be successful before undercutting. This is a drastic reduction in cost and income risk, and it's definitely unfair.