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Harlan Ellison Sues For "Star Trek" Episode
Miracle Jones writes "The ever-quotable speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison has launched a lawsuit against Paramount and the Writer's Guild West for rights to residuals surrounding his famous and award winning 'City on the Edge of Forever' episode for the original Star Trek series. Ellison, recently featured in the documentary 'Dreams with Sharp Teeth,' said that 'The Trek fans who know my City screenplay understand just exactly why I'm bare-fangs-of-Adamantium about this.' Regarding his lawsuit, he had this to say: 'The arrogance, the pompous dismissive imperial manner of those who "have more important things to worry about," who'll have their assistant get back to you, who don't actually read or create, who merely "take" meetings, and shuffle papers — much of which is paper money denied to those who actually did the manual labor of creating those dreams — they refuse even to notice... until you jam a Federal lawsuit in their eye. To hell with all that obfuscation and phony flag-waving: they got my money. Pay me and pay off all the other writers from whom you've made hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars... from OUR labors... just so you can float your fat asses in warm Bahamian waters.'"
Tell us what you really think dude ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This is not YRO. This did not happen online. The summary is so bad that I'm not even sure that this is about his rights.
He has a mouth and he must sue...
Get over it. Your copyright should have expired anyway by any sort of good definition of limited term.
I really enjoyed the Star Wars stuff he wrote...
On one hand, we have the tired old story of a writer/creative not receiving due credit for his work. On the other hand, said creative is possibly the most obnoxious asshole still living that I've known of.
On the third hand, this is Star Trek.
God, I'm so conflicted here, who do I want screwed over the most?
Is it in your contract? No? too Fucking bad, boo hoo, you shouldn't sign contracts you don't agree with.
You whiny pain in the ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't know what is contract said, but if he's like most of us it's called "work for hire" and he's already been paid. Unless he has a contract that promises a percentage of the future royalties and licensing he's just upset that he didn't negotiate said type of contract back in the day.
How many of us negotiate compensation not as $120k/year but as 1/4% of future royalties?
Yep.
Ellison is one of my favorite sci fi writers but the version of the screenplay he wrote only vagely resembles the one that was used in the film, it was rewritten several times himself and by 4 others including D.C. Fontana and Roddenberry himself before it was finally filmed. As is the original script was unfilmable, it was written from a writers skew not a screenwriters one and also dismissed alot of the established character traits of the crew. He was originally upset enough by the rewrites that he threated to pull his name from the script.
Fast forward 42 years and a Hugo and now he wants all the credit? I take it his books arent selling like they used to? Seriously Harlan maybe you need the cash or something but get over it.
Regardless of what any contract says, regardless of who actually owes what, screenplay writers are the major breadwinners yet get paid virtually nothing for their efforts. Nobody got rich writing scripts, but many many rich actors and movie moguls got rich from bloody good stories.
Now, onto the crux of what he says. It is well-known that money brought in through lawsuits, etc, via the MPAA and RIAA have not been forwarded to artists. It is also well-known that artists repeatedly sue managers, producers and studios for payment of royalties. Is it too hard to imagine the studios rip off those who are respected and heard even less?
The totals are probably exaggerated a little. A Star Trek FAQ from the 1990s suggested the annual turnover of Star Trek merchandise was around 60 million dollars. Recent FAQs don't show any estimate and deny it's possible to calculate one, so this is the only figure I can really go on. It simply isn't possible for a single episode (minus residuals owed to everyone else involved) to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even if we assume the FAQ figure to be about right. Tens of millions, divided amongst everyone, for the entire time since original screening - that sounds more likely.
Given the number of people involved wasn't many, I could see that he should have made somewhere in the low single-digit millions or upper three-digit thousands off a single script at this point. If he has made less than this, he has every right to feel like the studio is ripping him off.
Of course, legally, all that matters is what the contract says. If the contract says he should be paid X amount and he has been paid less than that (a common enough experience with artists, so why not writers?), then he has not just a moral argument but a legal argument.
Those who accuse him of kicking up a fuss over nothing should remember that the studios ARE rip-off merchants, and ARE making a great deal of money off Star Trek. There isn't the slightest possibility all of the money Paramount is making is legal. Maybe most of it is, but don't expect me to believe they're being honest for the first time in their lives over one of their biggest money-spinners. Their lawyers are bigger and their accountants are sharper. If there's a way for them to have hidden income, you can be certain they have.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Look them up. Though I admit it can be murky at times, inspired by and written by are NOT the same thing.
Seriously, when you get down to it how many things are inspired by Biblical stories and old fairy tales?
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What other industry do you get paid over and over again for work you have already done?
What industry do you get paid vacations? Yours? What industry can you show up for work, surf the web, and be otherwise unproductive for two-three hours so long as you steer clear of the PHB? Yours? What industry do you get -- I love this one! -- "sick days," where you can make a phonecall to some suit and then stay home under the covers and still be paid the same amount of money that week as if you had had 40 productive hours? Yours?
Or you can try being a writer. Sure they get residuals, money for something they've written a while back. Does that make up for not being paid for the sick days, Christmases, vacations, overtimes, whatever other downright wacky (when you think about it) conventions of the modern workplace in which they do not share? Maybe, maybe not. But the writers knew what they were getting into when they started their careers, same as the corporate clock-watchers. Seems a bit wrong to change the rules somehow...
OK, I think that I think rationally about copyright, though that may not be a completely objective opinion. Here's my way of thinking about it, and ya'll can decide if it's rational or not:
I'll start with a prosaic non-copyright example to establish my conceptual framework. Suppose you go to a builder to build a house. The builder would be willing to build it for $50000. However, the law requires that he charge you $100000. Would that be rational?
Now, suppose George Gershwin was willing to write "An American In Paris" as long as he had a copyright for 17 years, but the law required that he have the copyright for the rest of his life plus 100 years. Would that be rational?
People might say "It's his property!" But if somebody copies it, have they stolen it from him? Doesn't he still 'have' it. What he doesn't have (after the copyright expires) is the right to deny somebody else copying it.
I thought the original idea of copyright was to give a creator enough incentive to do creative work. Just like $50K might be enough incentive for that builder to build the house.
Copyrights do inhibit other people's rights. Nobody else was likely to independently compose "An American In Paris", but perhaps George Harrison indepedently composed the melody of "He's So Fine" for his song "My Sweet Lord".
If George Gershwin thought to himself, "I ain't gonna bother to write no "American In Paris' if all I get is a measly 17 years copyright'. Then maybe 17 years wouldn't be enough. How often do you suppose that comes up in the minds of creators?
Copyright is now associated with the concept of "intellectual property", and my self-described rational way of thinking of "intellectual property" is that it's a expression coined to trip up people into thinking of copyrights/patents as being the same thing as real property, which is stolen not when somebody copies it, but when somebody actually like, you know, goes out and steals it.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
The lawsuit is based on the master Writer's Guild contract in effect in 1967.
The contract defined who was entitled to be credited as a writer. It defined the writer's share in derivative works and merchandising.
It doesn't matter who owns the copyright on the script as broadcast.
The geek is abysmally naive about copyrights.
He forgets who owns the master prints. The trademarks that protect logos, character designs and props.
He forgets that Disney or Paramount has a corporate line of credit. Production facilities. Talent. Marketing and Distribution.
The screenwriter - the pro - never - forgets that without a strong union - without out a strong contract - the studios will find ways to profit from his work for all eternity.
The Last Dangerous Visions, the third volume of the anthology series, has become something of a legend in science fiction as the genre's most famous unpublished book. It was originally announced for publication in 1973, but other work demanded Ellison's attention and the anthology has not seen print to date. He has come under criticism for his treatment of some writers who submitted their stories to him, of which some estimate to be nearly 150 (many of the authors have died in the subsequent three-and-a-half decades since the anthology was first announced). Harlan Ellison
Greedy, arrogant writer sues greedy, arrogant corporation.
If he wants credit for shit, then how about we all give him credit for starting the Trek trend of bullshit time travel plot devices that have been pulled out whenever they need a ratings boost or plot holes need filled.
He can also take the credit if the new Star Trek movie sucks because of its time travel plot device. Its not about the art with him, its about the credit, so take it Harlan, its all yours! The shitty Voyager two part episode where they went back in time - Its yours!
The terrible DS9 holodeck episodes set during WW2 - yours too! You were the first to do a WW2 theme in Trek.
After all, its all about the money, your words. Let that be your epitaph, while after your death we continue to celebrate real sci fi authors like Phillip K. Dick who died penniless, but left amazing art.
"Sticking his neck out for the little people"? Since when? This is possibly the most self-centered person in Hollywood. And that's saying a lot!
Or is this yet another joke about his height?
A few years ago at Worldcon, a famous SF author told a story about Harlan Ellison. It seems that Ellison once asked a friend and fellow SF author what he thought about his (Ellison's) latest book, and the friend told him, in polite terms, that he didn't feel it was Ellison's best work. Ellison never spoke to the man again.
But that's not the end of it. Years later, Ellison had a heart attack, and the former friend sent him a note to express that he was sad to hear it had happened and wish him a swift recovery.
Ellison wrote him a nine page letter to reject his get-well note.
I'm fascinated to see what's in Ellison's books, what comes from the mind of such an angry man that could fascinate people for generations, but I'm waiting for him to die before I buy any of them, I don't want to give him any of my money.
$1 is a minimum dollar amount required to trigger "consideration" aspects of law, and is not considered a "trifle". There are many suits calling for $1, and no I'm not going to get flyswatted by a lazy "Citation Please". It's because the elements of contract law of Offer, Acceptance, *Consideration*, Capacity, Legality usually require Consideration>0.
What Harlan is suing for is to establish precendent for future cases that if the Guild does not assist authors in certain ways, Bad Things will happen.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine