Its the fundamental flaw with our broken copyright system. HBO should do fund-raisers for new seasons of Game of Thrones each year, to the sum of whatever amount covers costs + profits they want. Then the finished product can be public domain. If they are worried about year to year revenue they can do a rolling campaign, and episodes are produced when revenue is generated to pay for them.<p>You can still do investorships in such relationships - an investor can pay for the pilot, and then the studio can charge a surplus on future episodes to reimburse the investor. The risk is in how popular the series will be, and that is the risk the investor assumes - you just need to offer them enough of future episode profits to entice them.<p>They could still hold a trademark on the series so nobody could impersonate them, but if someone else wanted to take Song of Ice and Fire and make a tv series nothing would stop them as long as they aren&#x27;t impersonating HBO or George R.R. Martin.<p>This whole disaster around licensing produced works is hell and a huge burden on society and culture, and this is one spec is a sea of immorality around it.