Let’s talk Copyright Law.
I know, I know; hardly the most interesting of topics. But it is precisely in there, in the banality of legal jargon, that the evils of corporations live.
If you are dialed into copyright stuff, and/or the SFF writing community, you may have seen headlines popping up about some sort of conflict between Alan Dean Foster and Disney. This conflict is about rights and royalties for some of Foster’s written work.
Before we get into the story, here is a breakdown of the history between Disney and copyright law:
One of Disney’s primary strategies for entertainment world domination is by actively having copyright law changed so that their creations (and the creations of others that they have purchased) avoid entering the public domain for as long as possible.
Before the release of Steamboat Willie, the first movie with Mickey Mouse in it, copyright for a written work lasted 28 years, with the option to renew for another 28 years. But Disney was not content with having control of their intellectual property for only 56 years.
So Disney set to work. In 1976, 8 years before Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, Disney successfully lobbied Congress to change the rules for copyright. Copyrights of an individual author’s creations were extended to their whole life plus 50 years. And copyrights of a corporation’s creations (like Mickey Mouse) were extended from 56 years to 75 years.
Then, in 1998, 5 years before Mickey entered the public domain under the new 75 year rule, Disney successfully lobbied to have copyright extended again: life plus 70 years for individual authors, and 95 years for corporations. This protects Mickey until 2023.
As more people have taken an interest in copyright law in the age of the internet, it looks like Disney will not be lobbying for another extension. Instead, they are plastering Mickey’s likeness all over everything and filing for as many trademark licenses for him as possible. Pluto, Goofy, and Donald may all actually enter the public domain over the course of the next decade, but the Mouse is on lockdown.
Now, maybe you read this and think, “But Andrew, you are a writer! You hope to be published one day! Isn’t it better for you and your family that you hold the copyright to your work for your whole life plus 70 years, rather than for only 56 years?”
To which I say, no, it probably isn’t better for me.
See, most books only sell for a few years. Within a decade (or even less time), interest wanes in favor of newer books, until they go out of print. They aren’t stocked on shelves in stores anymore. In this digital age, you might still be able to find them in e-book or audiobook format, but to find a physical copy, you need to check the used book stores.
Now, I’m sure you can probably think of a dozen or more books off the top of your head that are well over a decade old, still in print, still can be found in Barnes & Noble, and still talked about. And I bet you can do it without needing to dip into the literary classics.
But for every Stephen King novel, there were hundreds of other novels published in the same year that almost no one remembers, let alone reads. And those authors, the ones not making gobs of money, are the ones that have no chance of benefitting from the copyright extension. Instead, it just limits which other works they can freely interact with in their own creations. It is only those at the top that benefit from this.
But enough about whether or not Disney’s crusade to extend copyright is a good thing. The point is clearly established that the company has taken a strong stand in favor of intellectual property being controlled by the creator…
…right?
And Now For The Tea…
I wake up this morning to see this tweet from amazing author and Science Fiction Writers of America president, Mary Robinette Kowal:
Alan Dean Foster is an author who has worked with a lot of licensed properties. When an author writes an officially licensed book in an existing franchise, they do not own the characters or the world. The one thing they do own is their words. This means that they get paid for their words, either selling all rights for a single lump sum, or getting paid royalties on the book sales.
For the novelizations of Star Wars: A New Hope, Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3, as well as for his novel, Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, Alan Dean Foster is supposed to be receiving royalties. He doesn’t get copyright control of the worlds and characters of the Star Wars and Alien franchises, but he is supposed to be receiving royalties for the books that he wrote for the franchises.
And he did receive them… until Disney bought Lucasfilm and Fox, thus buying both the Alien and Star Wars franchises.
Then, the royalty checks stopped.
Foster enlisted the help of the SFWA to get the royalties he is owed. As a writer’s guild, it is their job to help members in exactly this kind of situation.
But Disney has ignored the SFWA’s attempts to contact them, and told Foster that they will only sit down to talk with him about this if he signs a non-disclosure agreement before the meeting.
Remember, Disney has built its entire business model on the idea that creators should be able to have copyright on their intellectual property until the universe’s eventual heat death. But here they are, bilking an author out of his due, then trying to get him to sign an NDA just to get a meeting about the issue.
This is disgusting. And it proves that Disney’s copyright position has nothing to do with valuing authors.
Not only that, but as Mary Robinette Kowal points out, if this is allowed to stand, it could provide a model for other publishing companies to cheat authors out of what they are owed.
So stand with me and so many others against the horrible hypocrisy of Disney. Let Disney know that it doesn’t just get to bury this. Take to social media and voice your views on this using the hashtags #DearMickey and #DisneyMustPay.
Authors don’t need copyright for 70 years after their death; they need publishers to honor their copyrights and contracts now.