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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 pai

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.
      - toyg 6y ago
        Why are you so hellbent on dragging this on a completely off-topic discussion...? Nothing in my comments was anti-capitalist, I just said too much surplus is being accrued by certain elements and this might not be the just and ideal balance. Please point to where in my comments I asked for the abolition of capitalism. The real point remains: WFH in certain fields of endeavour is patently ripe for abuse. Or are you sincerely happy with the way DC Comics treated Simon and Schuster? Or the way Marvel treated Jack Kirby? Or, to get back on the issue of the day, what Disney is now doing to Mr. Foster?
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  That annihilates all knowledge work. If I can’t sell the products of my intellectual labour companies can’t have employees produce patented or copyrighted work for them.
  - toyg 6y ago
    If you cannot have work without abusing one's IP rights maybe it's a symptom that the current setup is fundamentally unfair and exploitative towards developers. Regardless, see my other reply [0] in this thread for the actual scenario that I had in mind, which can likely be accomplished without any economic armageddon. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25147379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25147379
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  I used to run a nice website that paid $50 per (short) article to hobbyists under a work for hire contract. The amount of hassle involved in trying to deal with royalties would have meant we’d simply not bother publishing them at all.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
emeraldd 6y ago
Any chance you can provide a source for this? It would be informative to know a few more details about the situation...
- gamblor956 6y ago
  This is a good resource about WFH in general. https://www.upcounsel.com/work-for-hire https://www.upcounsel.com/work-for-hire Generally, a novelization of a preexisting script (such as all of the novels that ADF is complaining about) is a "commissioned" work, meaning that it is a WFH under American law. As a WFH, the commissioning employer would own the copyrights, and an author would not be entitled to royalties because they aren't licensing a copyright from them. To the extent the author might receive any ongoing payments, those would generally be "performance bonuses" for reaching milestone sales. It is extremely rare for commissioned works to be subject to royalties, and that generally involves novelizations. Interestingly, ADF is claiming that the payments are royalties. (https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21578621/disney-alan-dean-foster-royalties-copyright-law https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21578621/disney-alan-dea...) Given Fox's history of non-standard/talent-friendly legal practices during the era in question (see, e.g., letting Lucas keep the rights to Star Wars), that sounds like something that 80's era Fox would have done...with respect to the Aliens novelizations. Something is off with how both sides are characterizing the agreements. Disney claims it didn't acquire any liabilites--but both the Fox and Lucasfilm acquisitions were stock acquisitions, meaning that acquired companies inclusive of all assets and liabilities. And ADF is claiming that WFH agreements included royalties, which is extremely rare. Ultimately, unless someone coughs up a contract, there's no way to be sure who's right here.
  - emeraldd 6y ago
    That's exactly the info I was looking for thanks!

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.
    - toyg 6y ago
      Why are you so hellbent on dragging this on a completely off-topic discussion...? Nothing in my comments was anti-capitalist, I just said too much surplus is being accrued by certain elements and this might not be the just and ideal balance. Please point to where in my comments I asked for the abolition of capitalism. The real point remains: WFH in certain fields of endeavour is patently ripe for abuse. Or are you sincerely happy with the way DC Comics treated Simon and Schuster? Or the way Marvel treated Jack Kirby? Or, to get back on the issue of the day, what Disney is now doing to Mr. Foster?
barry-cotter 6y ago
That annihilates all knowledge work. If I can’t sell the products of my intellectual labour companies can’t have employees produce patented or copyrighted work for them.
- toyg 6y ago
  If you cannot have work without abusing one's IP rights maybe it's a symptom that the current setup is fundamentally unfair and exploitative towards developers. Regardless, see my other reply [0] in this thread for the actual scenario that I had in mind, which can likely be accomplished without any economic armageddon. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25147379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25147379
alasdair_ 6y ago
I used to run a nice website that paid $50 per (short) article to hobbyists under a work for hire contract. The amount of hassle involved in trying to deal with royalties would have meant we’d simply not bother publishing them at all.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

emeraldd 6y ago

Any chance you can provide a source for this? It would be informative to know a few more details about the situation...

gamblor956 6y ago
This is a good resource about WFH in general. https://www.upcounsel.com/work-for-hire https://www.upcounsel.com/work-for-hire Generally, a novelization of a preexisting script (such as all of the novels that ADF is complaining about) is a "commissioned" work, meaning that it is a WFH under American law. As a WFH, the commissioning employer would own the copyrights, and an author would not be entitled to royalties because they aren't licensing a copyright from them. To the extent the author might receive any ongoing payments, those would generally be "performance bonuses" for reaching milestone sales. It is extremely rare for commissioned works to be subject to royalties, and that generally involves novelizations. Interestingly, ADF is claiming that the payments are royalties. (https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21578621/disney-alan-dean-foster-royalties-copyright-law https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21578621/disney-alan-dea...) Given Fox's history of non-standard/talent-friendly legal practices during the era in question (see, e.g., letting Lucas keep the rights to Star Wars), that sounds like something that 80's era Fox would have done...with respect to the Aliens novelizations. Something is off with how both sides are characterizing the agreements. Disney claims it didn't acquire any liabilites--but both the Fox and Lucasfilm acquisitions were stock acquisitions, meaning that acquired companies inclusive of all assets and liabilities. And ADF is claiming that WFH agreements included royalties, which is extremely rare. Ultimately, unless someone coughs up a contract, there's no way to be sure who's right here.
- emeraldd 6y ago
  That's exactly the info I was looking for thanks!