As for another example of Star Trek granting separation rights in the writer's contract, anybody else remember how T'Pol was originally going to be T'Pau, but was changed to avoid having to pay a boatload of royalties to Ted Sturgeon's estate?
That's a different issue. As I said above, even under work-for-hire contracts, the creator of a character is entitled to be paid royalties when that character is reused. But the studio still
owns the character and has control over what happens to the character. They have to pay you, but they don't have to get your permission. If you don't want them to use your character, you can't stop them; they'll go ahead and use the character over your objections, but they'll still have to send you a check.
I don't see you contradicting the main point of my post, which was that the Guardian was a character that Ellison would be owed payment on if reused, which was my point: we don't know the terms of Ellison's contract, but even if he has no say on if the Guardian is used, but he's most certain to demand payment if it ends up in a major motion picture, and that wields a lot of power in Hollywood. No producer's gonna give up a chunk of profits to someone if they don't have to.
That, of course, is quite true. The royalty issue has prevented fictional characters from being reused before. It's why ENT had T'Pol instead of T'Pau, it's part of why VGR had Tom Paris instead of Nick LoCarno, and it's why Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson (created by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich) have never appeared in the same
Stargate Atlantis episode as Samantha Carter or Teal'c (created by Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright) -- because that would entail paying royalties to twice as many people. And it may well have been a factor in the filmmakers deciding not to use the Guardian in the movie.
But my point is that that applies regardless of any action Ellison took. He'd be entitled to royalties in any case, whether he's entitled to permission or not. So if royalties were a factor in their decision, the fact that Ellison raised a fuss was irrelevant to that, because it's standard practice anyway, and it's been a factor in the non-reuse of characters whose creators didn't make any fuss at all, or who weren't even aware that their reuse was considered and then rejected.
So I disagree with your characterization of Ellison as "demanding payment." It's a given that he'd be entitled to payment (if it's used in a movie or TV show, not if it's in a novel or comic). As I understand it, Ellison has been claiming that his rights have been violated because he wasn't asked permission, not because of anything to do with compensation. As I explained above, those are two distinct (if easily confused) issues.
