Big Money for Stan Lee

[Skar]

Forgice me my ignorance.  Was Stan Lee not employed by Marvel to make Spiderman (among all the other comic work he did)?

If he was then I'm amazed that he won any kind of settlement. And it's a really bad precedent and needs to be reversed by a judge with a brain in his head.  Marvel owns his work, not him.  They paid him a salary so he could spend his days coming up with spiderman.

If he developed spiderman on his own then sold it to Marvel then they still own it and can reasonably make all the money they want off of it without giving him a red cent.

If he worked in some sort of contractual relationship with Marvel where he was owed 10 percent of royalties made from products that used his work and they were in breach of contract then he got them dead to rights.

Which is it, comic gurus?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yeah, i realized I gave an astoundingly bad example.

the point, Skar, actually, at least, the point I believe should be operated, is that stan lee, siegel, and all the others, were working under archaic business practices. few legitimate publishers these days give the kinds of deals that were used normally wehn Superman, Captain America, and Spider-Man were created. Maybe it's legal, but the arrangement is not one that would be made today by someone with any sort of long range thinking.

I think the judgement is in part trying to rectify this wrong, and in part looking at legal precedents we don't know about.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Harry Harrison never saw a dime of royalties from Soylent Green, but at least he got to be very much involved in the creation of the movie (though he couldn't prevent them changing the original Soybean-Lentil food into the supposed-plankton "Soylent Green is made from people!")

[Eagle Prince]

I don't really know any of the details, so I couldn't really say whether he deserves it or not.  But personally, if someone stole one of my characters, I'd be pretty ticked about it.  Like if someone stole Jax Ryan from me, they better spend some of that cash on security, cause I'd bust their skull.  But if I sold the rights to him or whatever, that's a different story.  I'm guessing he felt that Spiderman was his character, and I don't blame him from trying to get his piece.  If he won, then he obviously had some kind of a case.

[42]

Well, obviously Stan Lee had some kind of case. My argument is that Stan Lee didn't make all of the money. Most of the work done of the Spiderman films were done by other people. In fact, Stan Lee's innvolvement was minimal. And the right were sold, not stolen.

The deal the Stan Lee made is actually very common today. I know when I signed on at PDC they made me sign a contract say that all art work I produced at PDC belonged to them, exclusively. This didn't include work I did outside of office hours. Places like Disney, however, make their artists sign a contract that gives them exclusive rights to everything the artist produce both during office hours and off hours, and they maintain those rights, to all of your work, for a couple of years after you leave their employment. If you don't agree to those terms then you can't work for them.

So it is a trade-off, potential earnings versus job-security. To many people, the job security is worth it, since they may never see the potential earnings if left to their own devices.

[Entsuropi]

Surely all you do is never give in any of the stuff you do during office hours, and after the 2 years is up, wait for another year and then say it was all done in that year? It's not like they can claim you didn't do it that way.

[42]

Former Disney artists have found ways to get around the contracts. Or at least some have. But when you think about it, you have the risk of not making any money from your work by holding it back. Working through Disney gives you a great distribution, advertising, and marketing network that you probably wouldn't be able to get on your own.

[Entsuropi]

Even so, I can't imagine ever signing that contract. It boils down to, Disney owns your talents. Read too much cyberpunk to accept that :|

[42]

Well, your talents is what they are purchasing. It actually what any employer is buying when they hire someone.

[Eagle Prince]

Sure if you willingly sign away the rights that's a different story.  But if you didn't, or were tricked into it, then they are stealing from you.  I don't know what he did or didn't sign, but seeing that he won, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until I hear otherwise.  And lots of people did make the movie, but I'm guessing they got paid for their part... and I'm sure some of those people get royalties on top of that based on how well the movie did.

[Eagle Prince]

When what happens, they get famous and worth a lot?  Heh, so don't be a painter.  Naw, there are painters who make pretty good, you just got to be good.