The "Flinx of the Commonwealth" series are probably his best books. Not that his numerous movie adaptations are bad, but when he's working on his own stuff it's better. Good, rollicking space opera. Not heady, hard sci fi stuff but he's got well drawn characters, jaw dropping settings, with a good sense of action and adventurous pacing.
Don't see how you can purchase a copyright but not the obligations that go along with it, unless it was in the original contract.
The question remains: how can you divorce the obligations that come with a contract from its benefits? You shouldn’t be able to. When Disney bought Lucasart, they should be free to sell the entire agreement to a shell company, but not only the obligations part. There’s always only one licensee, having both the right to publish and the obligation to pay for it. To claim otherwise would be like me claiming that I sold half of my freelance contract to a shell company: they are obliged to take care of the work, but I retained the part of the contract that entitles me to bill them.
I agree, this sort of precedent would completely destroy the author-publisher relationship. Literally every author would be a company sale away from losing their royalties for life. It's such a hideous, evil concept, it's sort of hard for me to believe Disney is seriously trying to get away with this. I had always thought the "evil Disney" bit was overblown, but now I'm not so sure.
I hope this gets swatted down by the legal system hard and fast. I suspect Disney may buckle to public backlash here, but that doesn't mean they won't pull the same crap with other lesser-known authors.
>I agree, this sort of precedent would completely destroy the author-publisher relationship. Literally every author would be a company sale away from losing their royalties for life.
I self-published my first novel. After that, I've been toying with going to a traditional publisher for my second novel, but this sort of thing scares me. I'm not thinking that any novels I write could generate tons of cash - I write more for hobby than for money - but I'd hate it if a company took my story, sold "the obligat
Or, in this case, no licensee, only an owner- they were works made for hire and owned by The Star Wars Corporation.
If that is the case, that changes things rather a lot... but why was the guy being paid royalties by LucasArt in that case? AFAIK, it is possible to enter into a work for hire agreement that includes royalty payments, but in this case the obligation to pay those royalties stands, same as in a licensing deal.
If the specific contract between LucasArt and the author stipulates that the payment of royalties can be curtailed somehow, or if there is some other nasty legal fine print that amounts to the same,
This is precisely what SCO tried to do with SysV UNIX from Novell. They didn't actually buy UNIX, they bought a resale license, and tried to sue various Linux users and contributors for copyright violations. Novell finally paid attention to the lawsuits and pointed out that they'd never actually sold SysV UNIX and demanded the license money SCO had been collecting.
They probably sold the obligations to some unfunded shell company that immediately filed for bankruptcy because they couldn't pay.
I doubt disney would be that stupid.
If they sold the liability and obligations, then they hold no contract of rights. It's an admission of no contract held.
Disney knows full well without a contract of obligations, copyright falls back to one of an "implicit agreement" or an "explicit" agreement. The thing about either of those is, they can be given *and revoked* at will. The reason Disney isn't that stupid is because they are the ones that paid for explicit agreements to be revocable at will *retroactively*
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[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.
-- Joseph Campbell
I more associate him with the Humanx Commonwealth (Score:2)
The "Flinx of the Commonwealth" series are probably his best books. Not that his numerous movie adaptations are bad, but when he's working on his own stuff it's better. Good, rollicking space opera. Not heady, hard sci fi stuff but he's got well drawn characters, jaw dropping settings, with a good sense of action and adventurous pacing.
Don't see how you can purchase a copyright but not the obligations that go along with it, unless it was in the original contract.
Re:I more associate him with the Humanx Commonweal (Score:5, Funny)
Don't see how you can purchase a copyright but not the obligations that go along with it, unless it was in the original contract.
They probably sold the obligations to some unfunded shell company that immediately filed for bankruptcy because they couldn't pay.
Re:I more associate him with the Humanx Commonweal (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I more associate him with the Humanx Commonweal (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, this sort of precedent would completely destroy the author-publisher relationship. Literally every author would be a company sale away from losing their royalties for life. It's such a hideous, evil concept, it's sort of hard for me to believe Disney is seriously trying to get away with this. I had always thought the "evil Disney" bit was overblown, but now I'm not so sure.
I hope this gets swatted down by the legal system hard and fast. I suspect Disney may buckle to public backlash here, but that doesn't mean they won't pull the same crap with other lesser-known authors.
Re: (Score:2)
>I agree, this sort of precedent would completely destroy the author-publisher relationship. Literally every author would be a company sale away from losing their royalties for life.
I self-published my first novel. After that, I've been toying with going to a traditional publisher for my second novel, but this sort of thing scares me. I'm not thinking that any novels I write could generate tons of cash - I write more for hobby than for money - but I'd hate it if a company took my story, sold "the obligat
Re: (Score:2)
Or, in this case, no licensee, only an owner- they were works made for hire and owned by The Star Wars Corporation.
If that is the case, that changes things rather a lot... but why was the guy being paid royalties by LucasArt in that case? AFAIK, it is possible to enter into a work for hire agreement that includes royalty payments, but in this case the obligation to pay those royalties stands, same as in a licensing deal.
If the specific contract between LucasArt and the author stipulates that the payment of royalties can be curtailed somehow, or if there is some other nasty legal fine print that amounts to the same,
Re: (Score:2)
This is precisely what SCO tried to do with SysV UNIX from Novell. They didn't actually buy UNIX, they bought a resale license, and tried to sue various Linux users and contributors for copyright violations. Novell finally paid attention to the lawsuits and pointed out that they'd never actually sold SysV UNIX and demanded the license money SCO had been collecting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:1)
They probably sold the obligations to some unfunded shell company that immediately filed for bankruptcy because they couldn't pay.
I doubt disney would be that stupid.
If they sold the liability and obligations, then they hold no contract of rights. It's an admission of no contract held.
Disney knows full well without a contract of obligations, copyright falls back to one of an "implicit agreement" or an "explicit" agreement.
The thing about either of those is, they can be given *and revoked* at will.
The reason Disney isn't that stupid is because they are the ones that paid for explicit agreements to be revocable at will *retroactively*
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