I think the root issue is the creator didn't entirely understand what they were giving away. Harper Collins and all publishers don't create content. They are a delivery platform. Unfortunately to use their delivery platform I have to give them exclusive rights to the content (it's even worse than face book and reddit where they merely claim right to use the content).

In return they'll give you <10% of the profits of publishing the book. That seems like a terrible deal today.

On top of that we're also talking about books where the author is dead.

Why is anyone entitled to my creation isn't a valid question to ask of book publishers. They didn't create a thing.