Disney cheats Alan Dean Foster of royalties

[Crazedwraith]

We also have no proof that Alan Dean Foster actually wrote any of that initial blurb, or anything else.

I mean there's actual video of him in the link saying it.

Though I admit, I don't know Alan Dean Foster by sight so it could all be an elaborate hoax for some reason.

[Sidewinder]

Disney is cheating MULTIPLE authors of royalties. From Polygon:

Four additional authors have come forward to Polygon to confirm that they haven’t been paid royalties for work now owned by Disney, for works that appear to have been transferred to other publishers: Rob MacGregor, who wrote the tie-in novel for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as well as several additional tie-in novels; Donald Glut, author of the Empire Strikes Back novelization; James Kahn, author Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom novelizations; and Michael A. Stackpole, author of the X-Wing comics, Star Wars: Union, and Star Wars: Mara Jade — By the Emperor’s Hand. Without seeing contracts or the full details of the nature of the transfer of property from Lucasfilm to Disney, it’s hard to know if each author falls into the same situation as Foster, but the result appears to be the same: They haven’t received money that they feel entitled to for the work that they published.

In MacGregor’s case, he reported that a couple of years after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, his royalties stopped coming. After asking around at his publisher, he was told that “the license is no longer selling your Indiana Jones titles. As a result, there is no royalty bearing activity this statement period.”

Stackpole’s comics came out from one publisher, Dark Horse Comics, only to be later reprinted by another, Marvel. He notes to Polygon that this situation doesn’t affect his prose novels like his X-Wing novels or I, Jedi — he’s still getting royalties for those from Del Rey. But he began to notice issues with his comics shortly after Disney transferred the Star Wars comics license away from Dark Horse Comics to Marvel Comics, which Disney already owned. After speaking with another writer who’d written for both Dark Horse and Marvel, Stackpole learned that the writer was getting royalties from reprints, but only because they were already in Marvel’s system prior to its acquisition by Disney in 2009. “It was his understanding that if you hadn’t worked for Marvel, if you weren’t already in their royalty system, you just weren’t,” he says. (Dark Horse Comics and Marvel didn’t respond to a request for comment by the time this piece was published.)

Book royalties, Stackpole says, can be a complicated issue, and noted that the way one publisher conducts its business doesn’t necessarily carry over to another. His original contract for the X-Wing books didn’t provide a clause for ebook royalties, so the original publisher, Bantam Spectra, unilaterally issued a small royalty rate when the novels were published digitally. But because that clause wasn’t in his contract, Del Rey didn’t continue the practice when it acquired the license and began republishing the novels. Stackpole explained that he didn’t pursue the missing royalties because he figured it would be too small a sum and that he had other pressing issues in front of him. “You also have to keep in the back of your mind: Would raising an issue like that be something that would sour them on using you in the future?”

The concerns raise a question at the heart of the royalties issue: Is the fight worth it? “In principle, absolutely,” Stackpole adds. “We all want to be paid the money that we’re owed, but finding a practical solution or a legal remedy, it really is not economical either in time or money.”

Lawyers familiar with contract law tell Polygon that Disney’s arguments, that the transfer of the property to another publisher, and the ending of an original publisher’s edition of a book, nullifies any obligation to pay a writer or establish a new contract, might hold up. Companies buy assets and not the liabilities all the time, precisely because they don’t want to shoulder the burden of those obligations.

A long trail of author royalties, however small, would be a logistical and bureaucratic commitment. If an author’s contract doesn’t specify that Disney is on the hook for royalties, but the publisher that they signed with, then the issue would seem straightforward. Furthermore, absent any specific prohibition about assigning rights under or to contracts with authors, a company may assign that contract to another without approval from said author. But SFWA says that it’s spoken with its own attorneys who uphold its interpretation of the situation. Kowal also notes, “There are plenty of things that are perfectly legal, but which are completely immoral.”

[Galvatron]

[Solauren]

So, it gets down to ownership and licensing.

Disney now owns Star Wars. That includes all stories comerically published under Star Wars. (Even if they did them a dis-service by slapping the Legends title on it all)

They've transferred the liscense to publish Star Wars works to new publishers. (i.e from Del Ray to Marvel, from Dark Horse to Marvel)

That means any deals that existed between the previous liscensed publishers of works, no longer apply.

That means, any liability for royalties is gone, unless that publisher regains the license.

....

I'm not even sure there is anything MORALLY wrong with this. I already knew all this from taking Law in high school.

It's why i never tried to get anything I wrote for D&D, RIFTS, or some other stuff commericaly published, and barely have anything published in Fan Netbooks. I could lose royalties for my work, and someone else could make money off it!

I mean, companies go bankrupt or are sold all the time..

[Ralin]

So...why should companies be free to void royalty agreements like that at-will by selling an intellectual property? How can any author trust a royalties agreement for something they're hired to write if that is the case?

[Broomstick]

The authors can't.

[Crazedwraith]

If the law is that simple and clear cut, where is the dispute?

Would the authors not have checked with a lawyer before going public?

[bilateralrope]

If the law is that simple and clear cut, where is the dispute?

Would the authors not have checked with a lawyer before going public?

If they had a case, any competent lawyer would have told them to shut up and file the lawsuit. There is no advantage, but plenty of risk, to going public. So I see four possibilities:
- The lawyer they talked to wasn't competent.
- They didn't listen to their lawyer.
- Going public was an attempt to pressure Disney into renegotiating.
- A warning for people making book deals in the future. By making this tactic of Disney widely known, people can get a clause put into their contact that blocks it. Something like the rights only being transferable to a third party if the new rights holder agrees to all terms of the contract.

[Formless]

Or Alan Dean Foster, because he is dying of cancer, wanted to put the pressure on Disney now to settle the matter out of court quickly. The matter of his health is quite likely part of the reason he handled this differently than Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis are handling their dispute with Wizards of the Coast; they're young enough and in good enough health that going directly to the courts and suing for breach of contract will probably benefit them in the long run, but he may feel that he might not be alive long enough to see a lawsuit to the end.

[Solauren]

The authors can't.

This, exactly.

That's why it's better, after you're a proven author, to try for a fixed sum. You get paid, it's done, and you don't have to worry about anything afterwards.

Companies would probably appreciate that too. The author is paid, and then THEY don't have to worry about anything.

[Solauren]

Or Alan Dean Foster, because he is dying of cancer, wanted to put the pressure on Disney now to settle the matter out of court quickly. The matter of his health is quite likely part of the reason he handled this differently than Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis are handling their dispute with Wizards of the Coast; they're young enough and in good enough health that going directly to the courts and suing for breach of contract will probably benefit them in the long run, but he may feel that he might not be alive long enough to see a lawsuit to the end.

And Disney will laugh at that tactic, and then publish 'special editions' of his work, with new artwork or something, after he dies.

As for Hickman/Weis vs Wizards of the Coast, that's for what was an active contract. They're not suing for royalties for past works that may be owed, they are suing for breach of contract for work they were doing at the time (and in fact had submitted the first book of a new trilogy). BIG difference.

[Solauren]

So...why should companies be free to void royalty agreements like that at-will by selling an intellectual property? How can any author trust a royalties agreement for something they're hired to write if that is the case?

Think of it this way -
Star Wars is a property. A rental property like a large apartment complex, owned by LucasCorp.

An author that works for it is a tradesmen, who has come over, and done some upgrades to a few of the apartments.
The payment contract for that work was a lump sum up front, followed by a small percentage of rent from those apartments.

A few years later, LucasCorp then sold the apartment to the vast property corporation DisneyLand.

DisneyLand now owns the complex, and can rent it out. However, they are under no legal obligation to honor any contracts in existence on that property. It can even kick out people that are already living there, because their rental contract was with LucasCorp, not Disneyland.

If the tradesmen points out the rental percentage agreement, Disneyland will show them the property ownership papers, and point out that the tradesmen was never a legal owner, and therefore has no rights in this regard.

The only way the Tradesmen could get further money from the property would be if they had a non-discharged lein on the property. However, at the time of sale, the lein would either be paid off from proceeds from the sale, or voided because there wasn't enough money left to pay of the lein. Once the propertys ownership changes, all previous agreements, leins, etc, are void.


Does this suck for the people that had royalty agreements? Sure. But perfectly legal.

[Ralin]

DisneyLand now owns the complex, and can rent it out. However, they are under no legal obligation to honor any contracts in existence on that property. It can even kick out people that are already living there, because their rental contract was with LucasCorp, not Disneyland.

If the tradesmen points out the rental percentage agreement, Disneyland will show them the property ownership papers, and point out that the tradesmen was never a legal owner, and therefore has no rights in this regard.

And why should LucasCorp and DisneyLand be free to invalidate those contracts at will instead of them transferring with the property? What's stopping any property owner from voiding rental agreements at will by selling a property to a friend or business partner and later buying it back for the same amount? Tenants are supposed to have rights that protect them against things like sudden eviction before their lease is up, after all.

Does this suck for the people that had royalty agreements? Sure. But perfectly legal.

And the SFWA is just collectively really stupid and has never realized that despite having dealt with these sorts of contracts for a long time?

[Khaat]

Think of it this way -
Star Wars is a property. A rental property like a large apartment complex, owned by LucasCorp.

An author that works for it is a tradesmen, who has come over, and done some upgrades to a few of the apartments.
The payment contract for that work was a lump sum up front, followed by a small percentage of rent from those apartments.

A few years later, LucasCorp then sold the apartment to the vast property corporation DisneyLand.

Gotta stop you right there: Disney didn't buy the property, they bought Lucasfilm (the owner, in your example), a now "wholly-owned subsidiary." The original entity wasn't dissolved, it's direct rights are just brought under a corporate "umbrella", with all the other acquired (and extant) companies.

DisneyLand now owns the complex, and can rent it out. However, they are under no legal obligation to honor any contracts in existence on that property. It can even kick out people that are already living there, because their rental contract was with LucasCorp, not Disneyland.

If the tradesmen points out the rental percentage agreement, Disneyland will show them the property ownership papers, and point out that the tradesmen was never a legal owner, and therefore has no rights in this regard.

The only way the Tradesmen could get further money from the property would be if they had a non-discharged lein on the property. However, at the time of sale, the lein would either be paid off from proceeds from the sale, or voided because there wasn't enough money left to pay of the lein. Once the propertys ownership changes, all previous agreements, leins, etc, are void.

So this bit? Irrelevant. Also inaccurate: the property still, currently, belongs to Lucasfilm, as do the obligations on it: the property didn't change hands: control of the owing entity in whole changed hands without breaking the owing entity's previous and continuing obligations. (I could be wrong, but I haven't read anything about Lucasfilm being taken off the published works.)
Centralizing the payments owed into Disney's Purse-strings Department is an internal business/management decision, but in itself, doesn't absolve the controlling parent of the child entity's (Lucasfilm, in this case) debts and obligations.

To my understanding, you posit this was a change of ownership of rights. It wasn't: it was change of control of an entity who has rights *and obligations*.

Shuffle those publishing rights out of Lucasfilm in a legal shell-game to somewhere else under the Mouse? Maybe Disney is off the hook: this will come down to how the original contract between ADF and Lucasfilm is written. If it includes "successors and assigns" in the obligation language, Disney has to pay. GL being who he is, though, probably never considered he'd sell his baby, so it may not have that language. Lawyers tend to have boilerplate language, though, regardless of the client.

Either way, Disney is still shit for pinching these pennies, AND for only offering to *just talk* under an NDA. Disney is spending more on lawyers than the original obligation. When someone who can make that realization finally does, ADF and his wife will be dead in the ground. [sarcasm] Yay! Law more important than justice! Property more important than lives![/sarcasm]

[Solauren]

Realistically, we can't know for sure unless we see the original agreements, (and any followed up amendments) for the Star Wars works Mr. Foster did, and debating it will just run us in circles.

[Soontir C'boath]

Shuffle those publishing rights out of Lucasfilm in a legal shell-game to somewhere else under the Mouse? Maybe Disney is off the hook: this will come down to how the original contract between ADF and Lucasfilm is written. If it includes "successors and assigns" in the obligation language, Disney has to pay. GL being who he is, though, probably never considered he'd sell his baby, so it may not have that language. Lawyers tend to have boilerplate language, though, regardless of the client.

I'm not even sure authors would have thought to have contracts written in such a way. It wasn't like publishers were being bought out left and right or creating shell companies to get rid of their obligations which if they had, would be utterly ridiculous and chaotic.

If you were a carpenter and built five houses, yea sure you wouldn't get paid if those houses gets resold over and over again, but copyrighted content with royalties stipulated in the contract is a different beast entirely.

Update: Alan Dean Foster has settled with Disney and will be paid. An organization called DisneyMustPay has been made to help other authors who had their works bought out by Disney get paid too.

A task force made up of science fiction and fantasy, romance, crime and horror authors has been formed in an attempt to persuade Disney into paying authors outstanding royalties for novelisations and comics relating to their properties, including Star Wars, Alien and Indiana Jones.

The so-called DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force includes major writers Neil Gaiman, Tess Gerritsen, Mary Robinette Kowal and Chuck Wendig among its members. It has been formed by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in partnership with the Author’s Guild, Horror Writers Association, National Writers Union, Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.

The author organisations came together after the SFWA became involved in the author Alan Dean Foster’s battle to get Disney to pay him royalties for his bestselling novelisations of Star Wars and Alien. Foster was asked to write his novelisation of Star Wars: A New Hope by George Lucas himself, which was published in 1976. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, it bought the rights to the Star Wars novel, while Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019 meant it also bought rights to Foster’s novelisations of Alien, Aliens and Alien 3.

But despite the books still being in print, Foster claimed that Disney was not paying him royalties for them and that he’d had to go public after the company ignored multiple queries from his agents, legal representatives and the SFWA. The latter claimed that Disney had argued that it had purchased the rights, but not the obligations of the contract.

Foster said he needed the royalties, citing his wife’s “serious medical issues” and his diagnosis with an advanced form of cancer in 2016. Foster’s story provoked mass outrage, with the hashtag #DisneyMustPay trending on Twitter.

“When one company buys another, they acquire its liabilities as well as its assets. You’re certainly reaping the benefits of the assets. I’d very much like my minuscule (though it’s not small to me) share,” said Foster in November.

Foster recently hinted that a resolution was near, writing on his website last month that the “irritating imbroglio with Disney … is moving rapidly toward a mutually agreeable conclusion”. In its founding statement, the task force says that Foster’s case “has been resolved” but that it has since been contacted by “about a dozen” authors who are “similarly missing royalty statements and payments going back years” from Disney-owned or controlled companies.

The task force is calling for more authors who believe they are affected to come forward and says it has received “verified reports” of authors missing royalties for works relating to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, Stargate, Angel and Predator.

In one example, the task force alleges that the author of a Buffy comic had contacted Boom! Comics about their royalties. Fox had initially licensed comic book rights to Dark Horse, but when Disney purchased Fox, the rights were taken from Dark Horse and given to Boom! Comics. The writer said they were told by Boom! Comics that “royalties don’t transfer”.

“Since Disney has declined to cooperate with the task force in identifying affected authors, the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force needs help to contact everyone who might be affected. The joint task members need writers, readers, and fans to alert authors who may be affected,” the task force says in its announcement.

“Writers must be paid or given missing royalty statements; these contracts must be honored,” said Mary Robinette Kowal, author and president of the SFWA. “We urge all authors to review their statements to make certain they are in order.”

The task force is calling for Disney to honour the contracts it holds, and for the media giant to provide royalty statements and payments to all affected authors.

“SFWA wishes to create a cooperative relationship with Disney, but the corporation flatly refuses to work with us,” said Kowal. “They say they are committed to paying the authors, but their actions make it clear that Disney is placing the onus to be paid on the authors, while at the same time attempting to isolate the authors from receiving counsel from their professional author organisation.”

A Disney spokesperson told the Guardian that they were working with authors and agents to resolve the cases that have been raised so far. “We are carefully reviewing whether any royalty payments may have been missed as a result of acquisition integration and will take appropriate remedial steps if that is the case,” they said.

[Crazedwraith]

Glad some progress is being made and ADF at least got his money.

[Solauren]

Interesting point in the Disney statement from the latest article.

"the rights, but not the obligations of the contract"

That is an incredible detail. That implies there IS language in there including the transfer of the property to a new owner or publisher.
If that is the case, then the contracts for royalties are still valid, and will remain so for their original duration. (I doubt Disney would allow a renewal).

My guess is someone high up in Disney's legal department heard about this, and finally read the contract in full, and said to whomever was refusing to pay (and that persons bosses): "You're a fucking idiot that is in danger of costing us significantly more money then the contract you're trying to ignore is worth, and here is why..."

Good on Mr. Foster, his lawyer, and possibly Mr. Lucas and his lawyers, for including that in the contracts. It's what put Mr. Foster in the legal right.