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Star Wars novelist says Disney won't pay him royalties it owes him:
Alan Dean Foster, author of several Star Wars novelizations, says Disney hasn't paid him his royalties. According to Foster, Disney has asked him to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the company will speak with him. According to SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal, Disney is arguing that when it bought Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox, they bought contract rights — but not the legal obligation to pay Foster for his work.
[...] Foster ghost-wrote the novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope, under the byline of George Lucas; it was published in 1976 before the movie's release. He also published a sequel to Star Wars, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012; according to Foster, Disney stopped paying him royalties. Last year, Disney bought 20th Century Fox, acquiring the rights to some other novelizations by Foster: Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3. Disney hasn't paid Foster a dime on any of the Alien books, he says.
(Score: 5, Funny) by NateMich on Saturday November 21 2020, @11:52PM (12 children)
It's not like I'm able to hate Disney any more than I already do.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 21 2020, @11:58PM (10 children)
Disney being one of the main actors in lobbying for ever stricter copyright law surely wouldn't stiff an artist, would they? Maybe we need a new version of "is the pope catholic?" "Does Disney pay it's bills?"
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:14AM (1 child)
Does Disney screws it's artists and audience?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:11AM
Artists?, well. How many ex-inmates of the Mouse's harem of child star(let)s have stories to tell?
Audience?, an obvious example..ask any parent about the Mouse's mastery of the power of pester, and how much it has cost them over the years. As a mere Uncle, I know the Mouse has screwed money out of me on multiple occasions when I've bought my nephews and niece the birthday presents they've indicated they wanted, which, when unboxed, turned out to be cheap Chinese shit with a Disney logo and copyright notice slapped on to it, instant merchandising Mausgeld.....
I really feel sorry for anyone who had children of the target age for the 'Frozen' merchandising pester power tsunami..from the outside that one appeared particularly brutal.
(Score: 4, Touché) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:46AM
Does Micky Mouse shit in the box office?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:06AM (5 children)
FTFY (grin)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:41AM (4 children)
both of you can take your commas and shove 'em
p.s. stop pretending you are/aren't c0l0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @08:08PM (3 children)
What commas?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @11:25PM (2 children)
apostrophes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @12:29AM (1 child)
Aren't apostrophes commas in a high char?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @02:58AM
They infringe on each other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:51PM
but they lobby for stricter copy protection laws on behalf of the artist, no?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:33AM
Just when I thought they couldn't out-Disney-villain Disney villains. Mr. Burns would probably approve.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Booga1 on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:31AM (5 children)
Disney takes everything, gives nothing. They are systematically purchasing and co-opting every piece of culture they can. They hardly come up with anything on their own. They started with fairy tales, bought up Star Wars and Marvel comics.
Now they're taking mythological stories and characters from other cultures. China thinks they're getting something out of Mulan, but Disney's just getting started taking over the rest of the world...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:45AM (3 children)
Disney's reign of terror could be over soon depending on how the next couple of years go. Disneyland is closed, other parks could close [usatoday.com], and the Fox deal has not gone well [archive.is]. Movies are losing money with theaters closed and the video-on-demand model not covering expenses. Disney+ is not profitable (most streaming services burn money in the beginning) and subscriber counts are inflated by promotional deals, such as the one they have with Verizon.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:47AM (1 child)
You were saying
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DIS?p=DIS&.tsrc=fin-srch [yahoo.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:53AM
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA [yahoo.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:55PM
Only if we kick them while they are down. They have already conceded on infinite copyright extension, now it's time to push for sunsetting of the insanely long copyright limits they got legislated over the past 50 years.
They will have a strong royalty stream on their content even at $0.03 per stream of a feature length movie. If we don't want the Mouse to rise from the ashes of his COVID apocalypse, we have to change the landscape while he doesn't have enough cheddar to buy more laws.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:53AM
Who has coronavirus.
She got it in her iris whilst eating a pyrus.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marand on Sunday November 22 2020, @12:52AM (10 children)
From the article:
"I am altering the deal," said Disney, "pray I don't alter it any further."
I mean, is anybody actually surprised at this? They already regularly "set precedent to fundamentally alter the way copyright operates" every time Mickey Mouse is about to go into public domain, so doing it again to skip a bill is pretty normal. Or, to paraphrase another classic quote/meme:
"For you, the day Disney altered copyright laws for its own benefit was the most important day of your life. For Disney, it was Tuesday."
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:06AM (6 children)
I wonder what Walt Disney himself would think of what his company has become.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:08AM (2 children)
Before, or after his support of that new Chancellor in Germany?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:30AM (1 child)
Disney provided wholesome family entertainment which is more than I can say now for the immoral stuff it churns out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @04:36PM
When did it turn immoral? Was there a certain film or decade you can put your finger on?
I'm going to go with Malificent. I assume that wholesome family entertainment involves patriarchy, the mythic nuclear family, and the divine right of kings? So if the princess goes through childhood then enters magical sleep stasis to await marriage, the prince fights against the evil faerie queen, who is portrayed as an incel that never gets invited to parties, and the princess' life only resumes once she has a husband, then it is wholesome. However, if instead the faerie queen is able to arouse the princess by being in lesbians with her, then it is not wholesome.
Granted, as for the films themselves, I still prefer the original Sleeping Beauty. Malificent is an ok film, best to watch with alcohol or dude weed lmao, but it could have been done better if they had involved Ralph Bakshi instead and his rotoscoped magitek luftwaffe. How would you respond to such a theoretical Bakshi prequel or remake of Sleeping Beauty?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:23PM (2 children)
Walt Disney testified in the Red Scare that the animators that tried to form labor unions at his company were communists. He was ruthless and cutthroat throughout his career, we have every reason to believe he would love everything the company does now.
"Heartwarming, family-friendly stories" have always been only a sales pitch to Disney and nothing sincere. It's not new.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday November 22 2020, @10:14PM (1 child)
Ah, not being an American I didn't know that he was such a hardliner. I see why so many hate current Disney, because the family friendliness is fake.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Marand on Monday November 23 2020, @12:55AM
Every company does "fake" and tries to massage its image into something palatable to the public. That's not the problem per se, it's that the company's behaviour is so aggressively bad and always has been. Imagine if Intel and Oracle merged to form a company, kept all their existing and past business practices, but started trying to sell family-friendly products with a family-friendly image and talk about how much they care about you. That's basically a nicer Disney.
Walt Disney was basically what you'd get if Larry Ellison tried to pretend to be a real human being in public but kept being himself everywhere else, and the company still operates in his image - both public and private. A history of poor treatment of employees, excessive litigation, using its massive clout and even more massive bank accounts to rewrite US copyright to is benefit, taking from the public domain to make new things and then basically trying to claim ownership of those things because of its spin on them, and so on. They created the "lemmings walk off cliffs" myth by throwing them to their deaths and filming it.
They also have a long history of hyper-aggressively controlling their own trademarks, even blocking or threatening potentially fair uses, and it's not like the average person has the resources to fight them on it so it's essentially legal bullying. There was a recent one where I family wanted to use a Marvel character on their son's tombstone and Disney blocked it because Walt Disney instated a policy while he was alive specifically preventing characters being used on grave-related things because it might tarnish the "innocence and magic" of Disney characters. Speaking of trademarks, they even tried to trademark a holiday (Day of the Dead) and only abandoned it after public backlash.
Disney is basically everything that is wrong with American capitalism and corporations. There are some good companies out there, but Disney is not one of them, no matter how much money it spends trying to sell the idea that it is to the public. It's a shame, because while the company itself is pretty terrible, there are a lot of amazing, talented people working for it and what they create has to exist under that taint. I respect the work they do even though I hate the company they do it for.
(Score: 4, Touché) by tangomargarine on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:38AM
For the better? IP law in general sounds fairly fucked in the U.S. from what I've heard.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:03PM
I think they stepped back from the last round, internet freedom and all that noise was too strong (expensive) for them to overcome at the last renewal period.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:32PM
Just a side note on early Mickey: virtually none of it would be "politically acceptable" today. If you attempted to run the first 15 years of Mickey on public television, identity politics would have it shut down before it was properly started. Not to mention, most people wouldn't even recognize Mickey or his friends. The next 15 years would fare little better. Old Walt was a racissss sumbitch who didn't much like Japanese, Germans, Chinese, Blacks, natives anywhere, or even women by today's standards.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgXi_hVTuZAcGpGGrU7OHD5AiO0l_w4Mx [youtube.com]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kCZPzHg0h80 [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by oumuamua on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:48AM (3 children)
is likely going to be from Disney; they own so many franchises.
And when you look at box office revenue on RT or IMDB, a Marvel movie makes as much as all the other listed movies combined.
It's YOU who keeps feeding the beast.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:31AM
Watching it and paying for it are two separate things.
Arrr, me mateys, there be fresh IP to plunder!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:22AM (1 child)
I watched only one, a long while ago, can't remember which or what was about. In my defense, I was crazed by the lack of sleep while flying over the Indian ocean, starting from Heathrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @07:47AM
disney the company may be made of assholes.
disney the person may have been an asshole.
but most of the ~20 marvel movies are actually good movies.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @03:04AM (1 child)
Obviously, Jews are in charge at Disney ... and, Foster isn't Jewish.
It just takes a couple of money lenders to ruin everything for everyone else, including the rest of the Jews.
If Disney doesn't have an obligation to pay royalties then Foster doesn't have an obligation to protect Disney's IP and can open-source his books. Fair's fair.
I'm not sure what the long term solution to such people is - maybe to hang them from the lamp posts with their own intestines, as a warning to others? - but the short term solution is to hit them where it hurts, and threaten to place the books (and their characters) in the public domain.
"Ooh, give it to me, Luke! Fill me up with your big, thick, white saber!" That's where things will end up if Disney doesn't get their act together.
Fucking money lenders ruin it for everyone else. Or did I say that, already?
Nationalize the banks. Put banking in the hands of the US Postal Service. Kick the props out from under those greedy mother fuckers.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:15AM
You can seriously mean there's no wet riffs for StarWars, can you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Sunday November 22 2020, @03:10AM (5 children)
So, why doesn't this invalidate the grant of rights in the contract causing those rights to revert to Foster? (I'm sure the answer is the rules are written to favor Disney, or where they aren't enforcement is only available to multi-nationals)
Let me guess, the contract is 'held' by a shell with no assets and they feel his only recourse is to sue the empty shell...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @05:34AM (3 children)
I hope he sues them, Disney doesn't respond, and as default judgement he is given Lucasfilm and all rights to Star Wars. Because that franchise sure as hell needs someone who can write a story.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @09:39AM (1 child)
actually I think the franchise doesn't need anything.
people who can write need to write about something else.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:06PM
Oh, c'mon, it's not like Highlander 2 killed the whole franchise - no matter how bad it was. Surely The Empire Strikes Back was good enough to merit some worthwhile follow ups, not that it has gotten many yet, but it's still worth trying.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:36PM
The two TFAs suggest that Foster probably won't be writing a whole lot more in this lifetime. He and his wife both have serious medical issues.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @10:12AM
Without seeing the wording of his original contracts with Lucasarts (and Fox) it's hard to say anything, but, the obvious thing is that the books in question were adaptations of existing movies that he was contracted to produce for the studios, I've seen the phrase 'work for hire' used in discussions about this already. Apparently the Mouse's legal team view these books as such, rightly or wrongly, and that they are now their property lock, stock and barrel as part of their Borging of the other studios.
The important thing to Disney's legal sharks isn't so much the content of any contracts between ADF and Lucasarts & Fox, but how these books and their rights were represented in the respective sales of Lucasarts and Fox to Disney, e.g. were they listed there as 'work for hire' assets with no ongoing liabilities?, if so, they could take a leaf out of the Nazgûl play book and keep any litigation going for years..wear the opponent down physically and financially, the Big Blue way, and as ADF and his wife are reportedly not in the best of health...I'd hope he wins, but this is the Mouse, you can't even shame them into doing the decent thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:37PM (1 child)
I wonder if Disney could be split into several companies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:39PM
Easily. All it would take is a justice department that was really interested in justice, and the determination to take Disney on. Of course, that wouldn't be enough, in and of itself. We need a few federal laws to be written and enforced, regarding acquisitions and takeovers. Corporations with > ~20% of a market need to be seriously scrutinized before they are permitted to acquire any smaller holding.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Monday November 23 2020, @01:42AM
I was the perfect age to read that. I can still picture how I imagined the caves. At that point, I was hungry for anything "next" in Star Wars and Splinter fit the bill even it seems to be out of the cannon AFAICT. In the post Jar-Jar era, I just don't care... but they can't take those days away from me.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 23 2020, @06:22PM