4 ms·

Work for hire novels require royalties if the work for hire contract says they do.

gamblor956 6y ago
Yes. WFH contracts can have royalties, and it's my understanding that Marvel and DC's WFH contracts all have royalty-like provisions, because their authors and artists are generally providing significant new/creative IP, but the royalties in those contracts are simply royalty-like payments that they call "participation" because they're not legally royalties. They're similar, but similar is not same. Royalty-like payments do not have the same legal force that royalties; they're enforced through the normal means of resolving contract disputes rather than through the application of copyright law. It's extremely rare for WFH novelizations of movies to provide for royalties, because authors of novelizations are generally not creating significant (if any) new creative IP; in most cases, they're simply converting a script to prose format. ADF might have such terms in his contract, since movie studios were more generous about these things back then, but he's had the power to show us this part of his contract for almost a week now and he's chosen not to. Nor, for that matter, has the SFWA, which has similarly had access to at least one of those contracts.
- anotherman554 6y ago
  "Royalty-like payments do not have the same legal force that royalties; they're enforced through the normal means of resolving contract disputes rather than through the application of copyright law." DC did use the term royalties in their work-for-hire contract as of 2008: http://jimshooter.com/2011/09/few-more-thoughts-regarding-art-return.html/ http://jimshooter.com/2011/09/few-more-thoughts-regarding-ar... At any rate it's not clear to me what you mean by "normal means of resolving contract disputes rather than through the application of copyright law". Once you have a contract between the parties it's going to be resolved primarily as a contract dispute. It's not going to be resolved the way someone posting something on the pirate bay will be resolved. I'm not saying what you wrote is incorrect so much as I don't think it's going to make much of a practical difference whether you call it a royalty or not.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Yes, you can call something X all you like. That does not mean the law (or specifically, the courts) will actually treat it as X. DC specifically changed the terminology of its "royalty" payments because they were not actually royalties, but calling them royalties was causing headaches for its legal dept with respect to licensing, because the existence of "royalty" payments implied that DC was not the owner of the IP, and thus that they had to seek additional licenses from the actual owners of the IP.) And that is why Marvel switched away from calling them royalties a long time ago. Copyright law has a special regime for enforcement. I.e., statutory damages, etc. It applies in addition to relief available under contract law. However, for "royalty" payments that aren't actually royalties, only contract law remedies are available.

Yes. WFH contracts can have royalties, and it's my understanding that Marvel and DC's WFH contracts all have royalty-like provisions, because their authors and artists are generally providing significant new/creative IP, but the royalties in those contracts are simply royalty-like payments that they call "participation" because they're not legally royalties. They're similar, but similar is not same. Royalty-like payments do not have the same legal force that royalties; they're enforced through the normal means of resolving contract disputes rather than through the application of copyright law. It's extremely rare for WFH novelizations of movies to provide for royalties, because authors of novelizations are generally not creating significant (if any) new creative IP; in most cases, they're simply converting a script to prose format. ADF might have such terms in his contract, since movie studios were more generous about these things back then, but he's had the power to show us this part of his contract for almost a week now and he's chosen not to. Nor, for that matter, has the SFWA, which has similarly had access to at least one of those contracts.

anotherman554 6y ago
"Royalty-like payments do not have the same legal force that royalties; they're enforced through the normal means of resolving contract disputes rather than through the application of copyright law." DC did use the term royalties in their work-for-hire contract as of 2008: http://jimshooter.com/2011/09/few-more-thoughts-regarding-art-return.html/ http://jimshooter.com/2011/09/few-more-thoughts-regarding-ar... At any rate it's not clear to me what you mean by "normal means of resolving contract disputes rather than through the application of copyright law". Once you have a contract between the parties it's going to be resolved primarily as a contract dispute. It's not going to be resolved the way someone posting something on the pirate bay will be resolved. I'm not saying what you wrote is incorrect so much as I don't think it's going to make much of a practical difference whether you call it a royalty or not.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Yes, you can call something X all you like. That does not mean the law (or specifically, the courts) will actually treat it as X. DC specifically changed the terminology of its "royalty" payments because they were not actually royalties, but calling them royalties was causing headaches for its legal dept with respect to licensing, because the existence of "royalty" payments implied that DC was not the owner of the IP, and thus that they had to seek additional licenses from the actual owners of the IP.) And that is why Marvel switched away from calling them royalties a long time ago. Copyright law has a special regime for enforcement. I.e., statutory damages, etc. It applies in addition to relief available under contract law. However, for "royalty" payments that aren't actually royalties, only contract law remedies are available.