It's possible at some point that RNC sold all rights to the work and that therefore the licence holder can do what they please with it legally, but if they are doing this in part because they would have to pay royalties on print copies, then that suggests very strongly that they do not.
I get the impression that this is the case, although if I were RNC or any other freelancer who's missing out on royalties, I'd be having a long, hard look at my contract.
A quick question on the copyrights:
Does CGL/IMR own the copyrights for the old FASA material?
Or are they owned by Topps?
Or someone else?
I don't think that they're going to publish something that old, I'm merely curious.
Blasted wrote:
Does CGL/IMR own the copyrights for the old FASA material?
Or are they owned by Topps?
Or someone else?
I don't think that they're going to publish something that old, I'm merely curious.
Topps. And Catalyst has recently released some PDFs of old FASA material, both RPG sourcebooks and FASA-developed novels.
normally actors are not paid on a royalty basis, but a fixed fee for their work.
My daughter is a television actor. She gets paid residuals every time her work is shown. Either re-runs, foriegn showings, web-esodes, or DVD sales.
The checks just show up.
Clutch
Humph. Well live and learn, then. I thought profit share was only common for the big name actors who negotiated such. Apologies if your daughter is Megan Fox. (Actually, really apologies if your daughter is Megan Fox, I'm sure your daughter is actually a decent actress). Seems it's more common than I thought.
Okay, so it is similar to being ripped off by a big Hollywood studio, after all.
Yeah, actors, puppeteers, writers are paid on royalties. The guys who made the costumes, the puppets, or recorded it... They get paid by the task.
It used to be that music, comics, even writing were done per diem, and not royalties, but this never really caught on except in nonfiction words-on-paper stuff. It's how Stan Lee and others didn't actually have any rights to the characters, stories or even the art they'd produced while working for the studio.
-Crissa
Last edited by Crissa on Sat Jul 03, 2010 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You two are arguing semantics, and it's entirely beside the point.
It isn't clear that CGL has the rights to these older Battletech books, and if any royalties are due on them (which entirely depends on the contracts involved) they're unlikely to be paying them.
If it's a work for hire it's not a gray area at all, the copyright holder owns all rights other then moral rights. And if it's a ghost writing job they don't even get that.
If it's a typical non-media tie-in book the rights revert to the author after a while and the publisher only can do a limited set of things with it while they have the rights. See http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... -sold.html for an example.
For media tie-in books like a Star Wars book or a ShadowRun book I have no idea what the contact would say.
Oh, and if you look at the Stross posting look at comment #35 about rights and bankruptcy.
Last edited by kzt on Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
kzt wrote:If it's a work for hire it's not a gray area at all
No one said that, either.
As you might have known, if you were paying attention, the standard contract was royalties, not hire. That allows you to pay less up front, theoretically.
-Crissa
Last edited by Crissa on Sun Jul 04, 2010 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Have you seen the contracts in question or are you speculating?
I'm told that commonly media tie-in's are work for hire. I don't happen to own any, (in my opinion there are few things as sad as game based fiction) but if you do you can look at the copyright page. If it's FASA or similar then it's a work for hire. If it's Joe Smith it's probably not a work for hire.
Anyway, point of all this is that either RNC sold the rights in total for his works, or he agreed a contract that allowed certain uses of his work in exchange for payments. As he gets royalties for sales of print copies, it's not the former. So as it's the latter the question is whether his contract stated:
"You can print and sell copies of my book in exchange for $x.xx / x% profits per copy and you can base other works upon it"
or
"You can print and sell copies of my book in exchange for $x.xx / x% profits per copy and you can base other works upon it. And on the off-chance that in the future books are sold digitally you're free to do whatever you like with them without recompense to me."
I don't sign a contract with someone saying I'll pay them for work X, and then they come home and find I've taken their TV set because the contract didn't say I couldn't. It *may* be that RNC sold all rights to the work in exchange for $x.xx per printed copy sold, but that contract would be well worth a second look. Even if the contract does state that, given digital sales weren't known back then, the wording on the contract might still give him rights to royalties.
1. According to Bills, the high interest and demand in SR and BattleTech product and producing that product kept the company from focusing on the business side.
2. Bills blames CGL's issues on rapid-growth, a lack of paper trail, a lack of objective outside eyes like a CPA and an inability of the part-time book-keepers to keep up.
3. When copyrights were withheld on Shadowrun books, Bills had never had the experience of trying to stop a book at a distribution level.
4. For 15 years, Bills thought that authors had the right to withhold copyright when there was a dispute. But after speaking to three different lawyers and independently researching the issue he discovered that a freelancer, when signing a work-for-hire contract (depending on wording), cannot withhold copyright. The author can sue for breach of contract.
5. Bills asserts that in a small company the line between creative and business, all the way over to the financial side, is blurred. Personal and business finances occasionally intermingle and that was a "bad habit" that wasn't broken. When the amounts of intermingled monies entered into the hundreds of thousands their problems blew up exponentially.
6. Topps has been working with Catalyst in regard to how their internal problems can be fixed.
Last edited by Wesley Street on Thu Jul 08, 2010 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Wesley Street wrote:
4. For 15 years, Bills thought that authors had the right to withhold copyright when there was a dispute. But after speaking to three different lawyers and independently researching the issue he discovered that a freelancer, when signing a work-for-hire contract (depending on wording), cannot withhold copyright. The author can sue for breach of contract.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
All your copyrights are belong to us.
That Randall is a classy guy. I'd love to work as a Freelancer for him.
Crissa wrote:I'm pretty sure that if you don't pay, you don't get to claim work-for-hire.
-Crissa
You don’t have to believe me or Randal Bills but in most of the situations CGL and its freelancers would be involved; in this would be the case. I would suggest doing your own research into copywriter’s law with regards to Intellectual Property rights. In most of the situations CGL would find it’s self in it is the licensee for Intellectual Property rights via control by tops. A freelancer who is working under contract is adding to existing Intellectual Property but does not retain control of created property inside of the Intellectual Property. In other words there is no implied Intellectual Property copywriter that can be withheld because the writer is creating inside of an already controlled Property. But under the contract the writer and the contractor has to meet required items stated in the contract. If either of them do not do this then the writer or said contractor are allowed under the law to sue for breach of contract. So because of the fact that Shadowrun, and Battletech are both currently Tops controlled Intellectual Properties anything written for them belongs to Tops and it is at their discretion to publish material.
I'm not an expert here, but I do know that intellectual property and copyright cover different domains.
If I hire you to write a story with my trademarks in it, that's intellectual property. You can't sell that story to someone else, because it contains my trademarks. I can't sell your writing without your permission - even though it contains my trademarks in it - because that's copyright.
Also, legally, you are in a worse position if you cannot prove you are acting in good faith. To print something when there is doubts as to its authorship is to not act in good faith.
Of course, you can always claim you were hiring as work for hire. But without the signed documents saying so, very few judges will rule for you. The presupposition is that the writer - even on contract - retains copyright.
You don't need to be an expert to know a little history or law.
-Crissa
Last edited by Crissa on Fri Jul 09, 2010 2:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
Considering that they are in a lawsuit right now, I don't know how wise it was to go on record saying that they believe they can sell other peoples' writing without fulfilling their contracts after having been told to stop. They are currently trying to convince a judge that they are going to fulfill their contracts, announcing to he world that they don't have to fulfill their contracts but their creditors are welcome to sue them is perhaps not wise.
Not fulfilling your contracts to pay someone for something is always an option for anyone who owes money. For example, not paying your credit card bill. There are usually some downsides.
It's an option in a mortgage, whereby there's a written response: They take the home. Or a car loan. Etc.
But if you take work as an employer or contract... There isn't an 'else'. The else is illegal. And the response is the civil or criminal court system, the dept of labor, etc.
You could say 'there's always the option of murder'. But that's not a legal nor ethical option. So don't act like it's a real option.
