6 ms·

I have trouble feeling bad for the guy. He was paid what he had agreed to.

by donatj 9y ago

mirimir 9y ago
Yes, with no contract, it was work for hire. And it's understandable that he feels bad about it. So I do feel bad for him. We've all made mistakes. Given the headline, I had expected more than grief about no royalties. I mean, that is a disturbing old man.
tjr225 9y ago
I feel bad for the guy. The album was pretty successful...
scrumption 9y ago
You're the type of guy that looks for loopholes in board game rules and then acts all whiny when people call you an asshole for it. You're the type of the guy to start arguing semantics in the middle of a friendly debate at the pub and just keep going when everyone else stopped caring thirty minutes ago. You are, undoubtedly, a Reaganomics apologist. C'mon, dude.
ssambros 9y ago
I agree. On the other hand you have artists being paid in company stock which they decide not to sell[1]. Hindsight is 20/20. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Choe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Choe
Dylan16807 9y ago
There are certain revenue expectations in mind for any project. Any time something is wildly successful beyond that, I think everyone that made it deserves to split at least a few percent of the income.
- simonh 9y ago
  That’s not a sustainable way to run an industry though. Who decides what constitutes wildly successful? Who decides how many percent and who gets what share of it? Whoever went on and did the work to make the project so successful would have had other costs in doing so, they must have budgeted it out, they might even sell on the rights to the project at some point as happened in this case. Is it fair to then hit the new owners with extra costs out of the blue when they already paid for full rights and appear to be fully legally entitled to them?
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    > That’s not a sustainable way to run an industry though. Sure it is. Just because nitpicking is possible doesn't make the basic idea impossible. For example, of course the new owners would know what they were buying. > Who decides what constitutes wildly successful? Who decides how many percent Just as an example, it could be "more than 4x the expected revenue cited when doing the original negotiations", and 5%. (Or if "wildly successful" is too likely to get cheated, make it unconditional.) > and who gets what share of it? Plenty of ways to do it, just pick one.
    - simonh 9y ago
      How about everyone writes a contract laying out their rights, and we have default contractual arrangements if they don’t? Aside from some occasional entitled, envious whining it seems to work out ok so far.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        Probably okay, as long as the default contract has a little bit of royalties. The article is about someone who used the default contract, but the default at the time sucked. Let's make the default better. The risk of course is that there becomes a boilerplate that strips out such things, and it gets used so much that it becomes the new "default".
13of40 9y ago
"consummating the deal with nothing more than a handshake" Seriously, just a handshake. So fleeting. So trivial. It's just a gesture, after all.
jancsika 9y ago
This artist created something that got widely recognized, and the genesis of it (he alleges) was widely misrepresented by both Ellis and Anderson. Also, he got paid squat compared to what the album generated in sales. Unless you are Spock from Star Trek, you are going to have some feelings of frustration, indignation, and envy from that experience.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  If that frustrates you, then all of life is going to be endless pain. Why didn't you buy shares on company X (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) back when it was cheap? Why didn't you make every decision in your life the lucky way by correctly guessing the future? It's impossible not to constantly miss opportunities that involve guessing the future. If he had negotiated for a royalty, they might have refused. Perhaps he regrets not trying to negotiate. If he had tried and still got the same deal, I can't imagine any way he could regret it.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    Life doesn't become 'endless pain' just because you think that some amount of royalties should be the default. Imagine if it was just there, without being negotiated. Not a large enough amount to meaningfully affect the budget, just enough for huge successes to give a payout.
- tvmalsv 9y ago
  Doesn't matter to me what he got paid. If he wanted royalties, too, he should have negotiated that into the agreement, and he probably would have been paid even less of an upfront amount. He's not the one exposing himself to the risk involved with creating the project. By taking the fixed rate, he had a guaranteed return on his investment and didn't have to worry about the success or failure of the album.
  - jancsika 9y ago
    @donatj I could swear I was responding to a comment that read, "I have trouble having empathy for..." But now I look back and I read, "I have trouble feeling bad for..." Did you silently edit your comment, or did I accidentally misread it? I meant to respond to the topic of someone failing to empathize with another human being, which is a completely different conversation than someone failing to feel pity for another human being.
wpietri 9y ago
Easy thing to say. But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly. We make good cash money, and we tend to get a share of the success when things get big. It's not like we as individuals were clever enough to negotiate all of the details; it's a system mostly other people worked out over time. But we're very lucky in that people with our talents and skills are still much rarer than business types would like. That's not true with artists, and the music industry's default practices, especially then, were generally shitty. There's no reason this guy shouldn't get as fair a shake as we do. (And before anybody has a personal story of not getting a fair shake: yes, that sucks, which is exactly why you should want to see systemic changes that minimize that happening to others.)
- soperj 9y ago
  Isn't this exactly what happened with Dos & Microsoft?
  - rangibaby 9y ago
    I’m not going to miss a chance to suggest watching the (excellent) movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”!
- backpropaganda 9y ago
  > But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? So? I agreed to be paid a few thousand bucks for a few hours of work. Why does he owe me anything other than what we agreed on?
  - rangibaby 9y ago
    Counterpoint: the Nike logo was designed by an art student for $35. Phil Knight recognized her work’s role in the success of his company and later paid her a lot of money.

I have trouble feeling bad for the guy. He was paid what he had agreed to.

by donatj 9y ago

I have trouble feeling bad for the guy. He was paid what he had agreed to.

Yes, with no contract, it was work for hire. And it's understandable that he feels bad about it. So I do feel bad for him. We've all made mistakes. Given the headline, I had expected more than grief about no royalties. I mean, that is a disturbing old man.

tjr225 9y ago

I feel bad for the guy. The album was pretty successful...

scrumption 9y ago

You're the type of guy that looks for loopholes in board game rules and then acts all whiny when people call you an asshole for it. You're the type of the guy to start arguing semantics in the middle of a friendly debate at the pub and just keep going when everyone else stopped caring thirty minutes ago. You are, undoubtedly, a Reaganomics apologist. C'mon, dude.

ssambros 9y ago

I agree. On the other hand you have artists being paid in company stock which they decide not to sell[1]. Hindsight is 20/20. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Choe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Choe

Dylan16807 9y ago

There are certain revenue expectations in mind for any project. Any time something is wildly successful beyond that, I think everyone that made it deserves to split at least a few percent of the income.

simonh 9y ago
That’s not a sustainable way to run an industry though. Who decides what constitutes wildly successful? Who decides how many percent and who gets what share of it? Whoever went on and did the work to make the project so successful would have had other costs in doing so, they must have budgeted it out, they might even sell on the rights to the project at some point as happened in this case. Is it fair to then hit the new owners with extra costs out of the blue when they already paid for full rights and appear to be fully legally entitled to them?
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > That’s not a sustainable way to run an industry though. Sure it is. Just because nitpicking is possible doesn't make the basic idea impossible. For example, of course the new owners would know what they were buying. > Who decides what constitutes wildly successful? Who decides how many percent Just as an example, it could be "more than 4x the expected revenue cited when doing the original negotiations", and 5%. (Or if "wildly successful" is too likely to get cheated, make it unconditional.) > and who gets what share of it? Plenty of ways to do it, just pick one.
  - simonh 9y ago
    How about everyone writes a contract laying out their rights, and we have default contractual arrangements if they don’t? Aside from some occasional entitled, envious whining it seems to work out ok so far.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      Probably okay, as long as the default contract has a little bit of royalties. The article is about someone who used the default contract, but the default at the time sucked. Let's make the default better. The risk of course is that there becomes a boilerplate that strips out such things, and it gets used so much that it becomes the new "default".

13of40 9y ago

"consummating the deal with nothing more than a handshake" Seriously, just a handshake. So fleeting. So trivial. It's just a gesture, after all.

jancsika 9y ago

This artist created something that got widely recognized, and the genesis of it (he alleges) was widely misrepresented by both Ellis and Anderson. Also, he got paid squat compared to what the album generated in sales. Unless you are Spock from Star Trek, you are going to have some feelings of frustration, indignation, and envy from that experience.

lopmotr 9y ago
If that frustrates you, then all of life is going to be endless pain. Why didn't you buy shares on company X (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) back when it was cheap? Why didn't you make every decision in your life the lucky way by correctly guessing the future? It's impossible not to constantly miss opportunities that involve guessing the future. If he had negotiated for a royalty, they might have refused. Perhaps he regrets not trying to negotiate. If he had tried and still got the same deal, I can't imagine any way he could regret it.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  Life doesn't become 'endless pain' just because you think that some amount of royalties should be the default. Imagine if it was just there, without being negotiated. Not a large enough amount to meaningfully affect the budget, just enough for huge successes to give a payout.
tvmalsv 9y ago
Doesn't matter to me what he got paid. If he wanted royalties, too, he should have negotiated that into the agreement, and he probably would have been paid even less of an upfront amount. He's not the one exposing himself to the risk involved with creating the project. By taking the fixed rate, he had a guaranteed return on his investment and didn't have to worry about the success or failure of the album.
- jancsika 9y ago
  @donatj I could swear I was responding to a comment that read, "I have trouble having empathy for..." But now I look back and I read, "I have trouble feeling bad for..." Did you silently edit your comment, or did I accidentally misread it? I meant to respond to the topic of someone failing to empathize with another human being, which is a completely different conversation than someone failing to feel pity for another human being.

wpietri 9y ago

Easy thing to say. But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly. We make good cash money, and we tend to get a share of the success when things get big. It's not like we as individuals were clever enough to negotiate all of the details; it's a system mostly other people worked out over time. But we're very lucky in that people with our talents and skills are still much rarer than business types would like. That's not true with artists, and the music industry's default practices, especially then, were generally shitty. There's no reason this guy shouldn't get as fair a shake as we do. (And before anybody has a personal story of not getting a fair shake: yes, that sucks, which is exactly why you should want to see systemic changes that minimize that happening to others.)

soperj 9y ago
Isn't this exactly what happened with Dos & Microsoft?
- rangibaby 9y ago
  I’m not going to miss a chance to suggest watching the (excellent) movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”!
backpropaganda 9y ago
> But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? So? I agreed to be paid a few thousand bucks for a few hours of work. Why does he owe me anything other than what we agreed on?
- rangibaby 9y ago
  Counterpoint: the Nike logo was designed by an art student for $35. Phil Knight recognized her work’s role in the success of his company and later paid her a lot of money.