Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Please run that one by me again. Unless Disney picked LucasFilms up from a bankruptcy sale, they purchased the whole company with both it's assets and liabilities. Unless there was a novation agreement, the contract would still be in force.
You did read the linked article? Including a comment by Mary Robinette Kowal:
It's entirely possible that those royalties were how LucasFilm paid ADF instead of a single upfront payment.
And please don't write sentences suggesting that a company is giving away money from the goodness of their heart when that payment was codified in a written contract. Do you know how painful it is to spray coffee out your nose onto your keyboard?
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Yea, that does seem a bit odd. It's all about the contracts. My understanding is that most novelizations of movies and many books set in various universes such as Star Wars and Star Trek are works for hire. It purely depends on the contract. One can usually look on the title page of the book and see who has the copyright. Star Wars was copyrighted by George Lucas and Foster is not mentioned (though it was long rumored that he actually wrote it based on the screen play), Splinter is copyrighted by the Star Wars Corp. So both were likely works for hire and covered by the contract rather than by copyright law.