Ellison is sueing Paramount over Crucible and other merchandise
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
No it doesn't; you misunderstand. Usually, that is what the contract specifies, quite clearly. What I'm talking about here is not what the lawsuit is about. The issue of who owns the characters is separate from the issue of whether the creator gets compensation for their use. In Hollywood, writing for a TV series is work-for-hire; you know going in that the studio will own anything you create, and if you're not willing to accept that, you can simply choose not to write for TV. There's nothing hidden or deceptive where that particular issue is concerned. Whether it's right is a different question, but it's overt.
What the lawsuit is about isn't ownership, but compensation. Ellison is claiming that the contract he signed entitled him to compensation for the reuse of his characters, not only onscreen, but in derivative works and merchandise as well. Whether the contract actually does specify that, and whether efforts to enforce that specification have been lax, is the question before the court. What I said was that if you know what the contract specifies -- and it's right there in print for you to read before you sign it -- then you can decide whether or not to sign it. What Ellison is saying (or what Gerrold's saying he's saying) is that he knew what the contract specified and chose to sign it, but that the other parties involved have failed to live up to their obligations. Two different issues.
You're jumping the gun there, aren't you? As Allyn said, in England, creators actually do own their concepts, but it hasn't precluded a successful line of Doctor Who prose fiction.
On the other hand, sometimes DW tie-ins are unable to use particular authors' creations if they can't come to terms, hence the dearth of Daleks in the novels. But that isn't an issue here, because again, we're not talking about ownership, only compensation. If Gerrold's interpretation is correct, then Ellison is suing for the right to compensation for the use of an author's characters, but the ownership would still lie with the studio as it does now. So we wouldn't need permission to use someone's characters (when Fontana, David, et al. sought permission from Ellison, that was simply a professional courtesy); it's just that they'd get a share of the royalties, and I'm wondering if that might cut into the pie, i.e. if the publisher might want to discourage the use of too many canonical guest characters to avoid having to shell out too much. But it's premature to assume that would happen.
^ Though if it did, John Ordover and I would be entitled to retroactive royalties on almost the entire Corps of Engineers series, because one of its regular characters — Fabian Stevens — was created in our first DS9 episode, "Starship Down," for which we hold the "written by" credit. (Though I suspect that trying to collect such royalties would entail more effort than they're worth.)
I thought this had died off quietly after his demands for a "trailer-truck full of cash" and threats to issue an injunction against publication of the last two books in the Crucible series. I came across an article from late last year suggesting it was back on, and this seems to confirm it.
If he is indeed entitled to some compensation by virtue of his contract, good luck to him.
Paragrahps 16-17 suggest he has been pursuing this for some time.
Ouch! They mustn't think much of the appeal of Trek books if nobody would buy them without links to City!
Anyone else love the "big computer" referred to in paragraph 24?
Interesting to see the reaction of Ellison fans.
http://harlanellison.com/heboard/unca.htm
If he is indeed entitled to some compensation by virtue of his contract, good luck to him.
Paragrahps 16-17 suggest he has been pursuing this for some time.
Ouch! They mustn't think much of the appeal of Trek books if nobody would buy them without links to City!
Anyone else love the "big computer" referred to in paragraph 24?
Interesting to see the reaction of Ellison fans.
http://harlanellison.com/heboard/unca.htm
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^Picard joining the poker game in "All Good Things."
Good for Gerrold for interjecting some sense into this debate!
To borrow and paraphrase a line from Larry the cable guys Roast...
"Harlen has beat this dead horse so long its now dating Chris Brown..."
"Harlen has beat this dead horse so long its now dating Chris Brown..."
Oh, it is. I love that thing.
That actually sounds kind of cool.
Some of them kind of know him, and they're writers - respect might well have crossed their minds.
But it wasn't David George's job to seek out Harlan and ask permission for "Crucible". It wasn't his first ST novel, and he hadn't had to seek out any other past ST scriptwriter before. And neither did Paramount's, Viacom's, Pocket's or CBS's corporate lawyers either. Likeness approvals for certain actors on book covers yes, but not the literary content of spin-off novels.
Some of them kind of know him, and they're writers - respect might well have crossed their minds.
But it wasn't David George's job to seek out Harlan and ask permission for "Crucible". It wasn't his first ST novel, and he hadn't had to seek out any other past ST scriptwriter before. And neither did Paramount's, Viacom's, Pocket's or CBS's corporate lawyers either. Likeness approvals for certain actors on book covers yes, but not the literary content of spin-off novels.
Harlan's point, if I've understood it correctly, though is that they should have done. And should have done as a matter of course. Whether it was down to David, or Marco, or corporate suits at S&S, the point being made is that Harlan's contract gave him the right to expect that people would do so (and if he signed the same contract as everyone else, which one would suspect is the case, then it should have been the normal course of events).
P
It's highly unlikely David George has ever had access to Harlan's contract, so how would he know? It's definitely not his job to seek out Harlan. IIRC, he's never met the guy.
Marco and Paula would have been following the patterns of their predecessors, so how would they know? If Harlan's contract differed to everyone else's, why wasn't a large copy, laminated and circled in red, hung in Paula Block's office, or the Paramount lawyers' office? (I well remember how Playmates once "forgot" to get Nimoy's sign-off on a TMP trading card, and his TMP 4.5" figure had to be released as the only figure in that set without a bonus card, even though it was a still we'd seen before. Certainly, the lawyers made sure that didn't happen again.)
If PAD, DC and AC asked Harlan, independently, to make use of the Guardian, how would their editors even know to warn other future editors that Harlan always needed to know first? Sure, the onus is on CBS, as the current copyright holder, to honor all old contracts, but it seems unfair/strange that Harlan didn't press for shares of previous "City" novel royalties from Pocket or Paramount just because the authors were polite friends.
To be fair, I can't really think of many other books to borrow so much from an episode. While there's unquestionably plenty of original thought there, the trilogy really turns on the events of that episode, and retells it substantially.
It's even at a higher level than the Khan trilogy, which used the character but not the events of the episode. I can't really think of any others that are so centred around an episode.
As for the contract, I think the point has been made that the contracts of Ellison's time are substantially different to those that most writers are subject to, so he wouldn't have the same expectation as other writers.
Am I correct in recalling that Ellison is not mentioned in the lengthy acknowledgments of the first two books?
Harlan was claiming that, yes, but it seems he's now fighting for "all" writers from that era. He's challenging the way the old contracts are interpreted, as compared to modern contracts, which do specify more aspects.
Well David Gerrold puts his mouth where his money was. He had already sold a pitch for a ST novel, "The Space Vampire", many years ago (possibly the same premise that eventually became the controversial TNG script, "Blood and Fire"). He then had a falling out over the share on royalties, claiming that no ST tie-in writers received a high enough percentage. Pocket and Paramount didn't budge, so he pulled the proposed novel and found other ways to use the idea.
David fights the good fight without trampling as many toes.
But that's the heart of the problem - which it seems slightly as if you're dismissing because it's not how things have been done up til now... Harlan's point appears to be that it's about time it was sorted out and done properly. And he doesn't want people (specifically the WGA) trying to sweep the problem under the carpet.
