12 ms·

> The larger problem has the potential to affect every writer. Disney’s argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract

by koolba 6y ago

> The larger problem has the potential to affect every writer. Disney’s argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract. In other words, they believe they have the right to publish work, but are not obligated to pay the writer no matter what the contract says. If we let this stand, it could set precedent to fundamentally alter the way copyright and contracts operate in the United States. All a publisher would have to do to break a contract would be to sell it to a sibling company. That’s insane. If this were to hold up then any royalty obligation could be shuffled off to a shell entity?!

anigbrowl 6y ago
I guess I don't have to feel bad about republishing Disney's IP now. After all, I purchased it from a retailer intermediary and have no contractual relationship with the original publisher.
burnte 6y ago
I rather like the idea, actually. I'll set up two LLCs. One will buy a copy of every Disney movie. It will sell the RIGHTS to use those movies to the other, but not the obligations. That second LLC can then make infinite copies of those movies and sell them for profit, legally, under Disney's interpretation.
- randallsquared 6y ago
  They will, of course, argue that your LLC never bought any right to make and sell copies, so that right could not be passed on in a resale.
  - themaninthedark 6y ago
    I think there was a case in the WTO the US lost that gave Trinidad and Tobago the legal authority to violate US copyright up to a certain amount...
  - burnte 6y ago
    That's their interpretation of the contract. In the sale I have chosen to interpret it differently, much as they have.
haloweed 6y ago
qweqwes
bonkabonka 6y ago
It's the same for warranties. I was lucky when I replaced my HVAC system in that I got a manufacturer's warranty. A coworker who did the same six months later got a vendor warranty. Then my company and his company sold out to a third one and suddenly nothing was covered because the third only bought the assets of the first two companies. I was able to get my heat-exchanger covered but not the labor because, oddly enough, their labor cost for me suddenly increased by the amount Goodman specified as usual and customary and that's saying nothing about scheduling fees and truck-roll fees (and convenience fees for paying with a card, and a "collection" fee while I argued with them about all the insane fees). His heat-exchanger (also a Goodman) wasn't covered and he ended up just straight up eating a 3.5k repair bill. He and I both submitted paperwork to the state attorney general's office but the company "changed management" to the dude's wife and that restructuring meant we were SOL.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > He and I both submitted paperwork to the state attorney general's office but the company "changed management" to the dude's wife and that restructuring meant we were SOL. Is the "dude" here the state attorney general, or someone else?
  - bonkabonka 6y ago
    Dude is the owner of HVAC company #3.
microtherion 6y ago
Not just royalty obligations, you could apply this principle to any corporate acquisition and say that you're merely acquiring the assets and have no interest in acquiring the liabilities. This is by no means a novel idea; the concept of fraudulent conveyance is frequently litigated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance
- musicale 6y ago
  In a similar vein, private equity firms seem to be able to execute leveraged buyouts of companies (such as Toys R Us) saddling the company with huge debt payable to the private equity firm, which sucks money out of the company until it files for bankruptcy. It sounds like a scam but apparently it is legal somehow.
  - lmm 6y ago
    That's not a scam; it's no different from buying a house on a mortgage. Paying down the debt sucks away your income, and maybe if you're not as successful as you'd hoped then you default and walk away. Generally companies only put themselves in that position if they're near-bankrupt already (certainly that's the case with Toys R Us - if it hadn't been for the private equity deal they'd have been bankrupt 5 years earlier).
    - musicale 6y ago
      And they're not the only retailer to collapse after a private equity buyout: https://slate.com/business/2020/01/private-equity-retail-fairway-why.html https://slate.com/business/2020/01/private-equity-retail-fai... The first theory is interesting: "sometimes, private equity firms really are just looters." The high bankruptcy rate is not encouraging. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/24/private-equitys-role-retail-has-decimated-million-jobs-study-says/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/24/private-e... etc. And some of Toys R Us' creditors aren't happy either: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/toys-r-us-creditors-sue-directors-and-private-equity-owners https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/toys-r-us...
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Yes. Which has already been attempted, not least in romantic fiction where a certain well known publisher did exactly that - channeled sales through a shell company which allowed it to pay a hugely reduced royalty rate based on the publisher's net income. That didn't end well, and I doubt this will end well either. It would be very surprising if there aren't multiple writers involved, and this will most likely go through an expensive class action or at the very least an expensive out of court settlement. Whatever Disney's bean counters and lawyers believe they are saving is going to be wiped out in a few weeks of bad PR when core fans hear about this.
- worldsayshi 6y ago
  > when core fans hear about this. They might be banking on news not reaching core fans because of all the noise in the news. It feels like it's not the first time they are treating their creators like trash. Here's Don - the best Donald Duck comic writer of all - Rosa's story about that: https://career-end.donrosa.de/ https://career-end.donrosa.de/
  - sam1r 6y ago
    Incredible. Thanks for posting this.
- fakedang 6y ago
  I doubt a bunch of kids will be inclined to take action against Disney for this. They wouldn't even know what's happening, nor will their parents. Guessing Disney is counting on this for the case to be a non-issue.
savanaly 6y ago
It's just insane enough that I want to wait and hear "the other side" before passing judgement. Are there any other details that might have been left out for example that make it a less clear cut case of theft than what is depicted in the letter?
- stanrivers 6y ago
  Agree this sounds so beyond believable - will be interesting to hear Disney’s response
  - stanrivers 6y ago
    To clarify - I'm saying this is a terrible situation and it will be interesting to hear Disney's side because it is so unbelievable to me that a company would just literally argue this line of logic without there being something we are missing. If there is nothing missing, then shame shame shame
- marktangotango 6y ago
  SFFWA is a well known professional organization, that has been around a long time, why would one not accept the gravity and import of this news conference and announcement? I mean, the details are plainly presented! Is any institution to be trusted or taken at face value? Are we all to be completely bereft of common sense and decency in face of such rampant equivocating and hand waiving! Splinter of the minds eye may not have been the best novel, have mercy please!
  - sigzero 6y ago
    I loved that book actually.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      > I loved that book actually. I liked it too, Alan Dean Foster did some nice worldbuilding there (that ended up very non-canon) that you don't usually see in franchise novels. Another good example of this that comes to mind is 'Spock's World' by Diane Duane (though I think most of the worldbuilding there did become canon). The other ADF movie novelization I recall fondly is 'The Last Starfighter'.
jb775 6y ago
> Disney’s argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract. Unless it says that's allowed in the original contract, that's absurd...can't see that holding up in court. Disney is probably banking on using their legal teams to drag it through court and hoping he gives up. Wouldn't be surprised if they're doing this to dozens/hundreds of individuals.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  In this case, as a "debt holder" of sorts, wouldn't the class of writers also need to sign off on the M&A?
- stubish 6y ago
  Even if Alan Dean Foster gives up, his estate will still be owed. Or he could possibly sell the debt owned to a debt collector brave enough to tackle Disney. The issue isn't going to disappear over time.
  - gogopuppygogo 6y ago
    Neither are the teams of lawyers that Disney keeps on payroll. They’d rather you litigate with them and get a settlement than start honoring their obligations.
    - Matticus_Rex 6y ago
      Ah, the mustache-twirling villain theory of corporate law.
- toyg 6y ago
  They are likely doing that to tons of people. I wonder if it’s just a case of corporate laziness. Lucasfilm produced tons of Star Wars “extended universe” material from different authors. Maybe some middlemanager just went “eh, paying them all would take too much time. Let’s just pretend they don’t exist. If they complain, we’ll fob them off.” Could also be a reason for chucking out the extended universe at a narrative level.
nickff 6y ago
I am guessing that Disney is concerned about setting a precedent for their negotiations with other entities, hence the attempt at getting an NDA. That said, I think they've taken an untenable position. Book publishing rights are usually sold as a contingent right, kind of like an option, where the publisher is allowed to print the book so long as they pay out royalties. It would be very convenient for Disney to be able to separate the right and the obligation, but that would be similar to purchasing the right to a subscription service from a bankrupt company, and deciding that one did not have to pay for it, because that obligation was left to the defunct organization.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  The books in question are novelizations; the contracts for those may be different.
  - Macha 6y ago
    Not all the books are - Splinter of the Mind's Eye, for example, is not
trimbo 6y ago
Reminds me of how Paramount claimed Forrest Gump lost money because they owed Winston Groom 3% of the profits. So they found a way to make it not profitable. https://konvexity.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/what-accounting-lesson-winston-groom-learned-from-the-movie-forrest-gump/ https://konvexity.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/what-accounting-l...
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
  > He went to their office to have a look at the accounting books and found out that they were making $80 million loss. So he looked down at the expense items and he noticed a big expense item of $140 million. This is how every major film works. Sometimes that offset will be for future films, sometimes it will be a charge for "marketing and promotion" paid to a child company of the studio, but no matter what you call it you don't make a blockbuster film without this kind of funny bookkeeping. Warner Brothers claimed a $167 million dollar loss on Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix, a film that made nearly a billion dollars in theaters. https://www.slashfilm.com/insane-studio-accounting-warner-bros-claims-167-million-loss-over-harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix/ https://www.slashfilm.com/insane-studio-accounting-warner-br... See the incredible profit/loss sheet there. Top talent – A-list stars – negotiate for gross points. Daniel Radcliffe likely made a percentage of 600 million. Secondary stars might've got a percentage of gross after the "distribution fee" (paid to the same studio making the movie). Everybody else got a percentage of negative one hundred sixty seven million.
- Twirrim 6y ago
  There's a similar story about Star Wars not making a profit, and how that screwed over various actors on the project. Hollywood does this all the time. It's their standard dirty accounting practice. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting > According to Lucasfilm, Return of the Jedi, despite having earned $475 million at the box office against a budget of $32.5 million, "has never gone into profit".
- gfody 6y ago
  > The judge said: “The case dismissed. You got what you deserved.” this story really bums me out - I thought judges were supposed to interpret the essence of situations like this and say something like "nice try Paramount but I say you owe this man $10M" gavel slam. RIP Winston Groom
gulfie 6y ago
Nahhh, it's just good business(tm). "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." - DV
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Ironically enough, that too is now owned by Disney.
gamblor956 6y ago
Note: ADF is not being paid royalties. The books at issue were written under a work for hire agreement, so his original employer owns the copyrights. He was paid for his work. That employer also agreed to pay him out of the books revenues, and that is the obligation Disney claims it did not acquire when it acquired the assets of the company. If the royalty-like payments were part of a separate agreement from the work for hire agreement, Disney would be correct about not owing ADF any money. However, if the payments were part of the WFH agreement then Disney could be wrong, but it depends on how the WFH agreement was written.
- toyg 6y ago
  WFH needs to die. You couldn’t do this in Europe, I think.
  - namdnay 6y ago
    > WFH needs to die That would be a bit extreme wouldn't it? So no more freelance developers?
    - toyg 6y ago
      If that meant redistributing some of the massive profits that developers generate only to be amassed by companies and execs, I wouldn’t see it as a bad thing. But to be honest I was thinking more about relatively simple works of art. Books, comics, and songs, are typically made by a handful of people, often a single one; these processes should be completely excluded from WFH, since the final product is evidently and inextricably linked to the authors’ own skills and names. (Movies are more complicated, but credits in that area are strictly defined by unions and vigorously enforced.)
      - simonh 6y ago
        If these companies and execs are surplus, why don't the devs just create their work and run the business and assume all the risk themselves? In fact some already do. Nobody is making them take employment, earning a guaranteed salary regardless of the success of the business as a whole. They can take the work or not, its a straight forward tradeoff. This is the problem I have with this anti-capitalism rhetoric. There's nothing to stop people forming worker owned cooperatives, creator owned companies, etc if they want. In fact some people do exactly that and can be very successful, so clearly the regulatory framework isn't inimical to that sort of organisation. It's a perfectly legal ownership structure. So go and do it, and let the rest of us exercise our freedoms to do otherwise if we choose.
zajio1am 6y ago
> That’s insane. If this were to hold up then any royalty obligation could be shuffled off to a shell entity?! Why would this be surprising? If that was hired work (instead of licence for IP) for company A, then IP owner is company A and obligations to author are just contractural payments unrelated to IP ownership. Company A then may sell IP ownership to company B, while keeping contractual obligations to pay for contracted work to author. It seems not much different to a case when you buy a house from a developer, while the developer is still owing money to contract workers / builders.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > Company A then may sell IP ownership to company B, while keeping contractual obligations to pay for contracted work to author. As has been noted elsewhere in this discussion, Disney didn't just buy LucasFilm's assets, they bought LucasFilm, in a straightforward stock swap. That simply doesn't provide the opportunity you're describing. LucasFilm wasn't left behind as an obligation riddled shell. I'm pretty sure that if Disney could point to some legal entity other than themselves that was left saddled with the obligations, they would do so. Perhaps they just haven't done so yet, so we'll see.
rob74 6y ago
Cool... so Disney's stance is "we think we don't have to pay you for your work, if you disagree, you can sue us, but mind you, we have lots of lawyers and very deep pockets"? Probably this wouldn't work as well for smaller publishers, who have less deep pockets and who authors could boycott for such shenanigans, but still very worrying...
- Frost1x 6y ago
  This is the direction most of America is going. A surgeon and his colleagues I used to work with brought up the point how they often had to approach litigation of insurance companies regarding claims to pay for services rendered. I mean, their time is expensive, I get it, but this whole idea of forcing everyone to litigate transactions essentially puts the onus on the one with lower capital resources to pursue legal recourse. Corporate structures are aware of this and play the statistics as to if they'll pursue the proper action or simply take the infraction to court. This creates a new barrier to entry for people at large wishing to be fairly compensated: resources to litigate. To me, this shows just how misaligned modern corporate entities interests are with society and it's only going to get worse. These are, IMHO, some of the greatest threats to our society because they are legal, have a long history of legal precedent and are threats that come from within our own society.

by koolba 6y ago

anigbrowl 6y ago

I guess I don't have to feel bad about republishing Disney's IP now. After all, I purchased it from a retailer intermediary and have no contractual relationship with the original publisher.

burnte 6y ago

I rather like the idea, actually. I'll set up two LLCs. One will buy a copy of every Disney movie. It will sell the RIGHTS to use those movies to the other, but not the obligations. That second LLC can then make infinite copies of those movies and sell them for profit, legally, under Disney's interpretation.

randallsquared 6y ago
They will, of course, argue that your LLC never bought any right to make and sell copies, so that right could not be passed on in a resale.
- themaninthedark 6y ago
  I think there was a case in the WTO the US lost that gave Trinidad and Tobago the legal authority to violate US copyright up to a certain amount...
- burnte 6y ago
  That's their interpretation of the contract. In the sale I have chosen to interpret it differently, much as they have.

haloweed 6y ago

qweqwes

bonkabonka 6y ago

It's the same for warranties. I was lucky when I replaced my HVAC system in that I got a manufacturer's warranty. A coworker who did the same six months later got a vendor warranty. Then my company and his company sold out to a third one and suddenly nothing was covered because the third only bought the assets of the first two companies. I was able to get my heat-exchanger covered but not the labor because, oddly enough, their labor cost for me suddenly increased by the amount Goodman specified as usual and customary and that's saying nothing about scheduling fees and truck-roll fees (and convenience fees for paying with a card, and a "collection" fee while I argued with them about all the insane fees). His heat-exchanger (also a Goodman) wasn't covered and he ended up just straight up eating a 3.5k repair bill. He and I both submitted paperwork to the state attorney general's office but the company "changed management" to the dude's wife and that restructuring meant we were SOL.

webmaven 6y ago
> He and I both submitted paperwork to the state attorney general's office but the company "changed management" to the dude's wife and that restructuring meant we were SOL. Is the "dude" here the state attorney general, or someone else?
- bonkabonka 6y ago
  Dude is the owner of HVAC company #3.

microtherion 6y ago

Not just royalty obligations, you could apply this principle to any corporate acquisition and say that you're merely acquiring the assets and have no interest in acquiring the liabilities. This is by no means a novel idea; the concept of fraudulent conveyance is frequently litigated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance

musicale 6y ago
In a similar vein, private equity firms seem to be able to execute leveraged buyouts of companies (such as Toys R Us) saddling the company with huge debt payable to the private equity firm, which sucks money out of the company until it files for bankruptcy. It sounds like a scam but apparently it is legal somehow.
- lmm 6y ago
  That's not a scam; it's no different from buying a house on a mortgage. Paying down the debt sucks away your income, and maybe if you're not as successful as you'd hoped then you default and walk away. Generally companies only put themselves in that position if they're near-bankrupt already (certainly that's the case with Toys R Us - if it hadn't been for the private equity deal they'd have been bankrupt 5 years earlier).
  - musicale 6y ago
    And they're not the only retailer to collapse after a private equity buyout: https://slate.com/business/2020/01/private-equity-retail-fairway-why.html https://slate.com/business/2020/01/private-equity-retail-fai... The first theory is interesting: "sometimes, private equity firms really are just looters." The high bankruptcy rate is not encouraging. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/24/private-equitys-role-retail-has-decimated-million-jobs-study-says/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/24/private-e... etc. And some of Toys R Us' creditors aren't happy either: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/toys-r-us-creditors-sue-directors-and-private-equity-owners https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/toys-r-us...

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Yes. Which has already been attempted, not least in romantic fiction where a certain well known publisher did exactly that - channeled sales through a shell company which allowed it to pay a hugely reduced royalty rate based on the publisher's net income. That didn't end well, and I doubt this will end well either. It would be very surprising if there aren't multiple writers involved, and this will most likely go through an expensive class action or at the very least an expensive out of court settlement. Whatever Disney's bean counters and lawyers believe they are saving is going to be wiped out in a few weeks of bad PR when core fans hear about this.

worldsayshi 6y ago
> when core fans hear about this. They might be banking on news not reaching core fans because of all the noise in the news. It feels like it's not the first time they are treating their creators like trash. Here's Don - the best Donald Duck comic writer of all - Rosa's story about that: https://career-end.donrosa.de/ https://career-end.donrosa.de/
- sam1r 6y ago
  Incredible. Thanks for posting this.
fakedang 6y ago
I doubt a bunch of kids will be inclined to take action against Disney for this. They wouldn't even know what's happening, nor will their parents. Guessing Disney is counting on this for the case to be a non-issue.

savanaly 6y ago

It's just insane enough that I want to wait and hear "the other side" before passing judgement. Are there any other details that might have been left out for example that make it a less clear cut case of theft than what is depicted in the letter?

stanrivers 6y ago
Agree this sounds so beyond believable - will be interesting to hear Disney’s response
- stanrivers 6y ago
  To clarify - I'm saying this is a terrible situation and it will be interesting to hear Disney's side because it is so unbelievable to me that a company would just literally argue this line of logic without there being something we are missing. If there is nothing missing, then shame shame shame
marktangotango 6y ago
SFFWA is a well known professional organization, that has been around a long time, why would one not accept the gravity and import of this news conference and announcement? I mean, the details are plainly presented! Is any institution to be trusted or taken at face value? Are we all to be completely bereft of common sense and decency in face of such rampant equivocating and hand waiving! Splinter of the minds eye may not have been the best novel, have mercy please!
- sigzero 6y ago
  I loved that book actually.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > I loved that book actually. I liked it too, Alan Dean Foster did some nice worldbuilding there (that ended up very non-canon) that you don't usually see in franchise novels. Another good example of this that comes to mind is 'Spock's World' by Diane Duane (though I think most of the worldbuilding there did become canon). The other ADF movie novelization I recall fondly is 'The Last Starfighter'.

jb775 6y ago

> Disney’s argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract. Unless it says that's allowed in the original contract, that's absurd...can't see that holding up in court. Disney is probably banking on using their legal teams to drag it through court and hoping he gives up. Wouldn't be surprised if they're doing this to dozens/hundreds of individuals.

TuringNYC 6y ago
In this case, as a "debt holder" of sorts, wouldn't the class of writers also need to sign off on the M&A?
stubish 6y ago
Even if Alan Dean Foster gives up, his estate will still be owed. Or he could possibly sell the debt owned to a debt collector brave enough to tackle Disney. The issue isn't going to disappear over time.
- gogopuppygogo 6y ago
  Neither are the teams of lawyers that Disney keeps on payroll. They’d rather you litigate with them and get a settlement than start honoring their obligations.
  - Matticus_Rex 6y ago
    Ah, the mustache-twirling villain theory of corporate law.
toyg 6y ago
They are likely doing that to tons of people. I wonder if it’s just a case of corporate laziness. Lucasfilm produced tons of Star Wars “extended universe” material from different authors. Maybe some middlemanager just went “eh, paying them all would take too much time. Let’s just pretend they don’t exist. If they complain, we’ll fob them off.” Could also be a reason for chucking out the extended universe at a narrative level.

nickff 6y ago

I am guessing that Disney is concerned about setting a precedent for their negotiations with other entities, hence the attempt at getting an NDA. That said, I think they've taken an untenable position. Book publishing rights are usually sold as a contingent right, kind of like an option, where the publisher is allowed to print the book so long as they pay out royalties. It would be very convenient for Disney to be able to separate the right and the obligation, but that would be similar to purchasing the right to a subscription service from a bankrupt company, and deciding that one did not have to pay for it, because that obligation was left to the defunct organization.

aidenn0 6y ago
The books in question are novelizations; the contracts for those may be different.
- Macha 6y ago
  Not all the books are - Splinter of the Mind's Eye, for example, is not

trimbo 6y ago

Reminds me of how Paramount claimed Forrest Gump lost money because they owed Winston Groom 3% of the profits. So they found a way to make it not profitable. https://konvexity.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/what-accounting-lesson-winston-groom-learned-from-the-movie-forrest-gump/ https://konvexity.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/what-accounting-l...

35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
> He went to their office to have a look at the accounting books and found out that they were making $80 million loss. So he looked down at the expense items and he noticed a big expense item of $140 million. This is how every major film works. Sometimes that offset will be for future films, sometimes it will be a charge for "marketing and promotion" paid to a child company of the studio, but no matter what you call it you don't make a blockbuster film without this kind of funny bookkeeping. Warner Brothers claimed a $167 million dollar loss on Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix, a film that made nearly a billion dollars in theaters. https://www.slashfilm.com/insane-studio-accounting-warner-bros-claims-167-million-loss-over-harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix/ https://www.slashfilm.com/insane-studio-accounting-warner-br... See the incredible profit/loss sheet there. Top talent – A-list stars – negotiate for gross points. Daniel Radcliffe likely made a percentage of 600 million. Secondary stars might've got a percentage of gross after the "distribution fee" (paid to the same studio making the movie). Everybody else got a percentage of negative one hundred sixty seven million.
Twirrim 6y ago
There's a similar story about Star Wars not making a profit, and how that screwed over various actors on the project. Hollywood does this all the time. It's their standard dirty accounting practice. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting > According to Lucasfilm, Return of the Jedi, despite having earned $475 million at the box office against a budget of $32.5 million, "has never gone into profit".
gfody 6y ago
> The judge said: “The case dismissed. You got what you deserved.” this story really bums me out - I thought judges were supposed to interpret the essence of situations like this and say something like "nice try Paramount but I say you owe this man $10M" gavel slam. RIP Winston Groom

gulfie 6y ago

Nahhh, it's just good business(tm). "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." - DV

anigbrowl 6y ago
Ironically enough, that too is now owned by Disney.

gamblor956 6y ago

Note: ADF is not being paid royalties. The books at issue were written under a work for hire agreement, so his original employer owns the copyrights. He was paid for his work. That employer also agreed to pay him out of the books revenues, and that is the obligation Disney claims it did not acquire when it acquired the assets of the company. If the royalty-like payments were part of a separate agreement from the work for hire agreement, Disney would be correct about not owing ADF any money. However, if the payments were part of the WFH agreement then Disney could be wrong, but it depends on how the WFH agreement was written.

toyg 6y ago
WFH needs to die. You couldn’t do this in Europe, I think.
- namdnay 6y ago
  > WFH needs to die That would be a bit extreme wouldn't it? So no more freelance developers?
  - toyg 6y ago
    If that meant redistributing some of the massive profits that developers generate only to be amassed by companies and execs, I wouldn’t see it as a bad thing. But to be honest I was thinking more about relatively simple works of art. Books, comics, and songs, are typically made by a handful of people, often a single one; these processes should be completely excluded from WFH, since the final product is evidently and inextricably linked to the authors’ own skills and names. (Movies are more complicated, but credits in that area are strictly defined by unions and vigorously enforced.)
    - simonh 6y ago
      If these companies and execs are surplus, why don't the devs just create their work and run the business and assume all the risk themselves? In fact some already do. Nobody is making them take employment, earning a guaranteed salary regardless of the success of the business as a whole. They can take the work or not, its a straight forward tradeoff. This is the problem I have with this anti-capitalism rhetoric. There's nothing to stop people forming worker owned cooperatives, creator owned companies, etc if they want. In fact some people do exactly that and can be very successful, so clearly the regulatory framework isn't inimical to that sort of organisation. It's a perfectly legal ownership structure. So go and do it, and let the rest of us exercise our freedoms to do otherwise if we choose.

zajio1am 6y ago

> That’s insane. If this were to hold up then any royalty obligation could be shuffled off to a shell entity?! Why would this be surprising? If that was hired work (instead of licence for IP) for company A, then IP owner is company A and obligations to author are just contractural payments unrelated to IP ownership. Company A then may sell IP ownership to company B, while keeping contractual obligations to pay for contracted work to author. It seems not much different to a case when you buy a house from a developer, while the developer is still owing money to contract workers / builders.

webmaven 6y ago
> Company A then may sell IP ownership to company B, while keeping contractual obligations to pay for contracted work to author. As has been noted elsewhere in this discussion, Disney didn't just buy LucasFilm's assets, they bought LucasFilm, in a straightforward stock swap. That simply doesn't provide the opportunity you're describing. LucasFilm wasn't left behind as an obligation riddled shell. I'm pretty sure that if Disney could point to some legal entity other than themselves that was left saddled with the obligations, they would do so. Perhaps they just haven't done so yet, so we'll see.

rob74 6y ago

Cool... so Disney's stance is "we think we don't have to pay you for your work, if you disagree, you can sue us, but mind you, we have lots of lawyers and very deep pockets"? Probably this wouldn't work as well for smaller publishers, who have less deep pockets and who authors could boycott for such shenanigans, but still very worrying...

Frost1x 6y ago
This is the direction most of America is going. A surgeon and his colleagues I used to work with brought up the point how they often had to approach litigation of insurance companies regarding claims to pay for services rendered. I mean, their time is expensive, I get it, but this whole idea of forcing everyone to litigate transactions essentially puts the onus on the one with lower capital resources to pursue legal recourse. Corporate structures are aware of this and play the statistics as to if they'll pursue the proper action or simply take the infraction to court. This creates a new barrier to entry for people at large wishing to be fairly compensated: resources to litigate. To me, this shows just how misaligned modern corporate entities interests are with society and it's only going to get worse. These are, IMHO, some of the greatest threats to our society because they are legal, have a long history of legal precedent and are threats that come from within our own society.