Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
The SFWA would not be involved if that were the case.
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He isn't the only one being stiffed: he is simply the first to go public.
(Most of the others seem to still think quiet pleads can get them tbeir money.)
He also isn't dependent on his work-for-hire royalties as he has an extensive catalog of his own that includes classic series still selling like his FLINX/Humanx Commonwealth SF and his SPELLSINGER fantasies.
He was one of the more prolific authors of his cohort who was good enough and fast enough to take on movie tie-ins and novelizations in between his own books, probably because in those days publishers didn't like to see "too many" original books (one or two, usually) by the same author in the same year "competing with each other".
If he were starting out these days he could easily put out 4-6 or more good books a year on the strength of his name, without establishment help. But at 74 he probably isn't that active.
FWIW, in Disney's "defense", a lot (most?) corporate work for hire books today are contracted as flat fees instead of traditional advance+royalty contracts. The low level idiot inheriting the LUCASFILM books probably wasn't even aware of the financial liabilities that came in the merger.
The whole thing could have been settled ages ago by a simple call to accounting but that would require *finding* the contract and especially competence. The latter is not something to be commonly found in the bowels of big corporate bureaucracies.
Just the usual incompetence substituting for malice.
