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Harlan Ellison Sues For "Star Trek" Episode

Posted by kdawson on from the dangerous-visions dept.

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.'"

15 of 483 comments (clear)

  1. wow by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:wow by fm6 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is nothing special for Ellison. He does this in every conversation. HE ordering breakfast: "No I will not have coffee. Enough with people offering me coffee. It is time those of us who like orange with breakfast to take a stand ..."

      If you've ever wondered where the over-the-top language on Babylon 5 comes from, well, JMS learned his art at HE's feet.

      Two questions: why is this coming up now? Yeah, the Star Trek franchise always ripped off its writers. That's why the writing started out good in the first episode of the first series and went steadily downhill from there. But why this particular episode and why now? It's not like it's anything special. Yeah, it's a decent story, but I always have to fast-forward over the parts where Joan Collins preaches about space travel to the tramps in her soup kitchen.

      And also: Harlan, who are you to complain? You've been stalling the writers who contributed to Last Dangerous Visions for thirty years. At least your Star Trek episode actually got seen!

    2. Re:wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      why this particular episode and why now?

      Apparently a series of book have been released based on characters and situations from that episode. His contract specified that if such a thing were to happen, he would be paid. Paramount didn't pay him, even though he says he's been trying to get them to pay for a while. And the guild didn't defend him like they're supposed to. So after some months of going back and forth, he decided to sue them both (the guild for just $1 though).

      So that's why.

    3. Re:wow by psiphiorg · · Score: 5, Informative

      "why is this coming up now?"

      Because a recent novel trilogy—Crucible by David R. George, III—was based significantly on that episode (among others). The books came out in late 2006, and Harlan announced at that time that he was planning to sue Pocket Books/Paramount to either scrap the books or get gobs of money.

      As for why it took two and a half years from "I'll sue!" to actually suing, I'd imagine that his lawyer(s) tried negotiating with Paramount/Pocket first.

      davidh

    4. Re:wow by Bunny+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hate to explain a joke, but-

      The line is from one of Harlans more famous books and goes " "REPENT Harlanquin!" Said the TICTOC man."

    5. Re:wow by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No. Go one step further.

      If the writers didn't need to go to paramount to get RIGHTS to write said book there would be no profits to paramount for him to go after.

      The author wouldn't need to share any profits with Paramount and by extension there would be nothing to share with the original author.

      In this case the original writer wouldn't be bound to any kind of compensation for his episode. He wouldn't be getting screwed by Paramount.

      Furthermore broadcast rights wouldn't exist so paramount wouldn't be able to pick up re-run royalties. So all of those would ALSO no longer be payed to him.

      The only time the author would get payed would be once by Paramount when he originally wrote the episode. Since Paramount wouldn't own any rights to merchandising that also means there is no reason for any of the toy companies or anyone else to pay Paramount for the rights to use Star Trek since none of them signed any contracts either.

      That means Paramount can only make money from donations and 'first hand' DVD sales. (Which doesn't really mean anything because I could be competing with my free bit torrents legally. So why bother with Paramount?)

      So Paramount makes no money from merchandising (They aren't a merchandise company.) They make no money from advertisers (NBC just broadcasts it for free. Everyone else downloads it for free.) And by extension the writers go unpaid.

      Simply put. No intellectual property COMPLETELY FUCKS THE AUTHOR. Unless he begs and pleads for fucking charity. Yes. This is the world that most slashdotters believe in. One in which authors go back to their "Rightful place" of begging on fucking street corners for their dinner if you play them a song. But writers don't even get the dignity of being able to perform on a street corner. The moment their work is recognized as marginally worth selling a giant publisher will swoop in and sell a billion copies giving the author not a single pretty penny. The only source of income for authors in an IP free world is direct sales(They're authors not publishers! Let them do what they do... WRITE!) is to depend upon donations and charity.

      Also no screenwriters will EVER SHOW ANYBODY THEIR WORK. Why would you shop around a screenplay if the first person who likes it and has 100 million dollars just goes ahead and makes it?

      DOWN WITH IMAGINARY PROPERTY! DOWN WITH ARTISTS!

    6. Re:wow by julesh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      HE, by contrast, has had no real impact on anything, beyond pissing a lot of people off.

      While I'm not personally a fan and find it trite and overdone, there's a general consensus of those in the know about such things that Dangerous Visions really did push the boundary of what was acceptable to publish a long way forward, and started a new trend in SF that is still having impact today. The fact that as a modern reader looking back we see nothing remarkable about it is, I'm told, a testament to just how much influence it had: nothing before was like it, but everything since has been.

    7. Re:wow by remmelt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We've tried this system; that's how art was funded prior to the invention of copyright in, what, the 18th century? The problem with this system is that it encourages funding of a few big name artists while everyone else struggles to get noticed. The resulting body of artwork lacks diversity and tends not to challenge the status quo for fear of offending the people holding the purse strings.

      Did you just describe the current situation or the 18th century? I couldn't tell.

  2. Oh Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Hmm... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    He has a mouth and he must sue...

  4. I really... by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 5, Funny

    I really enjoyed the Star Wars stuff he wrote...

  5. On one hand... by Chyeld · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:On one hand... by TrekkieGod · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      Well, let me simplify things by giving you a bit more information. City on the Edge of Forever wasn't written by Harlan Ellison. Oh, Harlan Ellison did write a TOS episode called City on the Edge of Forever, which included a drug dealer, multiple humanoids guardians of forever, a pirate ship that replaces the Enterprise when the timeline gets changed, the bad guy being stuck in a supernova explosion, and a Captain Kirk who doesn't actually make the decision to let Edith Keeler die, thus forcing Spock to step up to that role.

      I read the original script once. It was horrible. The adapted script took the Edith Keeler character and the overall general idea, then made the script good. Harlan Edison made a lot of noise about them spoiling his brilliant script, and then later published the original. Now he has the gall to say that, 'The Trek fans who know my City screenplay understand just exactly why I'm bare-fangs-of-Adamantium about this.' No. The Trek fans who know his original screenplay think he should thank the studio for paying him for his original script and for letting him keep the credit as writer. He doesn't deserve a penny of residuals for the actual episode. Forty years later, he really shouldn't get anything anyway, but if he is entitled to something, its royalties from his published original version.

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

    2. Re:On one hand... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Harlan has tilted at windmills his entire life.

      This is where he is happy, fighting the impossible fight that gives him the limelight one more time...

      I will never forget my personal berating at the hand of the man. The profanity he spouted when I handed him a book to sign, he signed it and when I got it back I said in jest, "Wait I though you were Kurt Vonnegut"...

      He came unglued.... It was spectacular.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  6. Ellison is an angry, angry man by TheMCP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.