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Disney breaks contract with STAR WARS and ALIENS writer Alan Dean Foster


Werthead

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Disney can outspend any individual author but the SFWA has considerable resources to call upon, including many individual members who are multi, multi-millionaires.

Obviously Disney still has infinitely more resources than them, but the SFWA easily has enough financial firepower to get this into court and get it in front of a judge.

Are they a union?  Could they get other authors to stop working for Disney?

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Disney can outspend any individual author but the SFWA has considerable resources to call upon, including many individual members who are multi, multi-millionaires.

Obviously Disney still has infinitely more resources than them, but the SFWA easily has enough financial firepower to get this into court and get it in front of a judge.

They do, of course. But they don't have enough resources to keep pace with Disney if they really want to be douches and drag this on endlessly.

Considering the amount in question, at least for Foster, it boggles the mind that they simply don't just pay him what he's owed. In Disney money, that's just change. It's not like the guy never got paid. Only since Disney took over and it's not like Foster topped the bestseller lists since then.

Paying what they owe and just terminating the book division would be a much simpler and less expensive process.

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47 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

They do, of course. But they don't have enough resources to keep pace with Disney if they really want to be douches and drag this on endlessly.

Considering the amount in question, at least for Foster, it boggles the mind that they simply don't just pay him what he's owed. In Disney money, that's just change. It's not like the guy never got paid. Only since Disney took over and it's not like Foster topped the bestseller lists since then.

Paying what they owe and just terminating the book division would be a much simpler and less expensive process.

It's not really possible to "drag things on endlessly." They can take them to court and they can force a judgement with their resources, easily, and contract law is one of the most basic tenets of law. Disney's gamble was that ADF by himself would have not wanted to fight this (possibly even factoring in the fact he has cancer, and may not live long enough), but in that case the gamble has failed.

Also, Foster hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List in 2015 with the Force Awakens novelisation, so he's still making them serious bank. TFA novel is not under contention, since he signed that contract direct with Disney and they seem to still be paying him for that one.

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4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No. If they bought the benefits they bought the obligations.  It doesn’t matter how many shell companies they created or how many “pass throughs” exist.  If they have the power to tell authors “we don’t own your obligations”.  They have the power to set up the structure that shifted the obligations to another corporation (a cashless corporation) in the first place.  

As such, they have the power to pay the author and the commensurate obligation to ensure the authors are paid.

I agree with you - this is the legally incorrect position.

It is also the morally and ethically wrong thing to do as well.

But I can believe that someone with a private equity background has taken this position.

And given Disney's overreach on copyright law changes, I can believe someone in a senior position is willing to defend it in the hope they can outlast Foster and his heirs in court.

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Adam, believe me, with top lawyers like Disney can hire, this thing could remain in court for years and years.

As I mentioned, this is business as usual for big corporations and insurance companies. That's what they do when do go up against little people.

But given that the titles under contention are not moving lots of units, as most of them are older novels, it's kind of weird that Disney would act thus. The money involved (huge for Foster, but next to nothing for Disney) doesn't warrant such treatment.

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1 hour ago, Lord Patrek said:

Adam, believe me, with top lawyers like Disney can hire, this thing could remain in court for years and years.

As I mentioned, this is business as usual for big corporations and insurance companies. That's what they do when do go up against little people.

 

1 hour ago, Wilbur said:

I agree with you - this is the legally incorrect position.

It is also the morally and ethically wrong thing to do as well.

But I can believe that someone with a private equity background has taken this position.

And given Disney's overreach on copyright law changes, I can believe someone in a senior position is willing to defend it in the hope they can outlast Foster and his heirs in court.

I just wanna say: fuck 'um all.

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3 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

Adam, believe me, with top lawyers like Disney can hire, this thing could remain in court for years and years.

 

Sure, but where that reasoning falls apart is that there's not enough money at issue to make it worth hiring top lawyers for years and years. 

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2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I don’t mind but I’ve noticed several people refering to me by my real name (Adam).  Is there any particular reason for this?

I thought that was Wert they were calling Adam...

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56 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Too many people named Adam nowadays.  I graduated from High School with 800 people in 1989.  Two of us were named Adam.  Now... it’s everywhere.

:)

Could be worse these days... you could be a Dakota, or a Cooper, or some such other nonsense

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Too many people named Adam nowadays.  I graduated from High School with 800 people in 1989.  Two of us were named Adam.  Now... it’s everywhere.

:)

You were born while Adam was on its upswing. In 1971 0.322% of boys born in the USA were named Adam. At its peak year of 1984, 1.2755% were named Adam. 

Of course now it's on the downswing and in 2019 only 0.2184% were named Adam. 

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1 hour ago, Ormond said:

You were born while Adam was on its upswing. In 1971 0.322% of boys born in the USA were named Adam. At its peak year of 1984, 1.2755% were named Adam. 

Of course now it's on the downswing and in 2019 only 0.2184% were named Adam. 

I had a Coleco Adam computer around 1984.  Told my parents to get the C64...

But there were only 5 or 6 ten year olds out of about 35 boys my year in grammar school named Michael.

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