Ellison is sueing Paramount over Crucible and other merchandise
- Thread starter JD
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Half of Sacrifices of War is literally a novelization of "Errand of Mercy". And it's interesting to note that in this case (post-Crucible controversy) Gene L. Coon gets a cover credit.
I don't see how he's doing it "properly", though. Ellison fired off some nasty allegations about Marco and his professionalism when the first "Crucible" came out - and yet I can't see how Marco was to even suspect that there would suddenly be a problem using the work of one particular TV writer, especially when so many other ST novels had already featured the characters and tech of CotEoF.
Ellison also flew into a rage when he "heard" that JJ Abrams' movie script involved time travel, and he assumed the worst, that the Guardian was the mode of that travel.
No, Ellison reacted to the news that a copy of the Guardian of Forever was being built on the lot and thought it was connected.
And you're still missing my point. What Harlan is saying is that since 1967 things should have been done in a certain way, which they haven't been. He's trying to ensure that post-2009 they will be, and the only way that will happen is if there's a legal precedent. Whether he's right about that or not is beside the point (that's what the court will decide) - his point is that things have been done in X way up til now, when they should have been done Y.
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All I can think is that while the creators should have their fair share, if he wins it'll probably screw up Trek publishing for years and those of us who were just getting in will be fucked when CBS decide "Hey let's not do these books any more".
No, I don't think that's right. As I said above, my understanding is that this isn't about permission, only royalties. Going by what David Gerrold said on TrekMovie, the suit isn't claiming that Ellison owns the concepts and must be asked permission before they're used -- merely that he's entitled to get royalties when they are used. Normally, when a character created in one episode or film is used in another episode or film, the character's creator gets royalties for that use, even though the studio owns and controls the character. What the suit is saying, if I understand correctly, is that the same practice should apply when the character is reused in a different medium such as prose, comics, or merchandise.
Why? There may be constraints put on what can and can't be done with the literature - but that's happened before, and it'll happen again. It might knock sequels on the head but not original stories featuring the core CBS-owned characters...
For my money, while I understand Ellison's desire to secure royalty payments for writers when one of their characters is re-used in a novel, I don't really know that a lawsuit is the way to change that. Seems to me that if the original contracts didn't contain provisions saying that writers were owed royalties when characters were re-used in other media, then the court doesn't really have any legal basis for so ordering -- at least not retroactively. I suppose the court might have the power to compel the WGA to make royalties for media tie-in products a part of future standard contracts, and certainly Ellison and the WGA have the right to make that demand or to even strike if they don't get it, but I don't see how Ellison can logically claim he's owed money that his original contract never said he was owed.
Assuming, of course, that his original contract didn't say he was owed royalties from characters he created being used in media tie-ins.
Assuming, of course, that his original contract didn't say he was owed royalties from characters he created being used in media tie-ins.
He's been pursuing it through the Guild since about the time of "Crucible" and now through the courts since it appears that the first option is exhausted. That's doing it properly. I think what you mean is that he hasn't done it politely, and that's sure enough true.
And, in fact, what will be in dispute in court will be the meaning and scope of the original contract's provisions.
People really should read the legal complaint before continuing to comment, now that the link is available.
^Dennis is so right. Folks, please read the complaint, specifically paragraph 12, then come back to this thread. I know not everyone's going to understand the legalese, but the relevant paragraphs are pretty straightforward.
This way we're at least on a level playing ground for the discussion?
This way we're at least on a level playing ground for the discussion?
Well, you did ask if the lawsuit was successful and its greater impact on tie-ins.
I didn't "ask," I raised the question of what might happen if the lawsuit were successful. At this point, we don't know what actually would happen. You engaged in speculation and asserted it as fact, and that's jumping the gun.
Additionally, there is a surprising amount of "Harlanese" for a legal document.
What happens if the lawsuit is "successful" depends very much on Paramount's response to the initial ruling. Buchwald v. Paramount came close enough to opening a real can of worms where "Hollywood accounting" is concerned that the studio settled for an undisclosed sum of money rather than fight the decision up through the appellate courts.
Basically, if they're fearful enough of losing they'd rather pay someone a lot of money than have a precedent established at a higher level - state supreme court, say, or even higher - that can be applied to other lawsuits by other writers.
What it means is entirely subject to the verdict of the court. Say the court decides in Harlan's favor. Every other Trek TV writer with that clause in their contract could then class-action Paramount. I haven't seen a WGA contract recently, but my understanding from that complaint was that the clause was only in the contracts for a limited time in the 1960s. For those who've seen WGA contracts more recently, is that correct?
If the court rules in Harlan's favor, things could get very interesting, and I mean in the Chinese curse sense of the word.
However, the presence of the clause in the contract does give him enough to raise the suit. This is hardly frivolous. I've seen publishers taken to task on similar notions for not presenting royalty statements to their authors and then owing said authors a bit of money, but that was years ago. Hardly a perfect analogue, but it's the closest I can think of right now.
He's been pursuing it through the Guild since about the time of "Crucible" and now through the courts since it appears that the first option is exhausted. That's doing it properly. I think what you mean is that he hasn't done it politely, and that's sure enough true.
And, in fact, what will be in dispute in court will be the meaning and scope of the original contract's provisions.
People really should read the legal complaint before continuing to comment, now that the link is available.
Reading it now. Seems to me that the relevant questions are whether granting publication rights to "serial or episodic series television film material" under the 1966 MBA only constitutes the publication of the teleplay, or whether that can be expanded to include a novelization of the teleplay, or whether it can be expanded to include an original novel incorporating elements from an episode such as characters, and whether this applies to any writer or only to freelance writers.
If it applies to any writer, not just a freelance staffer, and if the definition of publication rights to series material includes original novels incorporating characters from a given episode, then, if I'm understanding this correctly, a writer is due 25% of a producer's net receipts from a given novel based upon a TV show. So, in theory, a novel like Star Trek: Destiny would just not be worth doing from CBS Paramount's POV -- Michael Piller's estate would get 25 percent of CBS Paramount's due because Shelby appeared; Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga would get 25% because of the Borg Queen; Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewit Wolfe would get 25% because of Martok; Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler would get 25% because of Ezri.
This is interesting, because I had always been under the impression that the WGA's standard contract excluded the idea of getting royalties from a character's use in a novel. I guess that's how "publication rights to such material" has been commonly interpreted -- the complaint indicates that the WGA interprets "publication rights" as referring to, in essence, novelizations of teleplays. So it's all a question of how the court decides that the 1966 MBA should be interpreted.
Ellison's complaint is erroneous when it claims the following, however: "Paramount, through its licensor and sister company, Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster carefully and, Ellison asserts, with flagrant intent, purposely avoided any mention of Ellison anywhere on or in the trilogy though his WGAW-Award-winning authorship of City is universally acknowledged." Ellison is specifically cited and thanked in the acknowledgments to the final Crucible novel.
Personally, if I'm understanding everything correctly, I'm actually hoping that Ellison's contention that the "publication rights" term ought to be broadly interpreted to include original novels incorporating characters or elements from an episode is denied by the court, or at least is interpreted less loosely than Ellison is contending. It seems to me that if you do what Ellison wants, then that ends tie-in novels' ability to really do anything creative, because the copyright owners wouldn't actually make money off of it. A typical New Frontier novel, for instance, might owe money to Joe Menoky (Robin Lefler), the Michael Piller estate (Shelby), Ronald D. Moore (Jellico, the USS Excalibur), and Theodore Sturgeon (the pon farr concept).
If we're going to broaden the definition of publication rights, I'd prefer to see it in terms of, say, the fundamental plot of an original novel being predicated on the plot of a TV episode. So, something like Errand of Fury III or the Crucible trilogy would lead to CBS owing money to the Gene Coon estate and to Ellison, but something like New Frontier wouldn't owe money just because it uses a character.
Since I'm willing to berate other people for having uninformed opinions - that is, making guesses about the unknowable outcome of a lawsuit like this - I'll stick my neck out with my own uninformed opinion and say that this time I think HE is tilting at windmills. That is, I don't think he'll win. I hope to be wrong, though.
For anyone who's interested I actually found the current WGA Theatrical and Televison Agreement. Which they call a "Schedule of Minimums". There actually isn't even a single mention of any kind of tie-ins or anything. But I realize now that that's exactly what this whole thing is based on.
Suprisingling it's actually right there on there website for free, and you don't have to sign up or anything.
Suprisingling it's actually right there on there website for free, and you don't have to sign up or anything.
I was just spitballing worst-case scenarios (depending on your POV on the matter). I didn't mean to imply facts. But, the implications could very staggering, particularly for Trek tie-ins.
Of course, given that in Harlan's script the Guardians were a race of 9-foot tall humanoids, and he's always ridiculed the "gateway" version that GR replaced it with, the next question is whether the bloody thing as seen in Crucible and the Hallmark ornament is actually his creation anyway.
