I was just on Trekmovie.com, and they are reporting that apparently Ellison has acted on his threats and is now in fact sueing Paramount and (or) CBS, partly due to the release of The Cruicible trilogy. So does he have any kind of a chance of succes here? From what you guys have said the last, it seems to me like he probably doesn't.
Without being able to see the contract he signed for his original work on "City," there's no way to know what the real deal is. It would be atypical for a freelance writer to have retained the kind of rights he claims to have for what boils down to a work-for-hire agreement, but if he and/or his agent was savvy enough at the time the contract was written up, who's to say? If his contract does in fact reflect that he's due compensation he hasn't received, then more power to him.
But you would think that if he really was supposed to have been getting money for all of this stuff over the years, someone would have noticed by now.
Interesting timing, that he'd choose to sue over Star Trek just when a new ST movie is about to open and the franchise is getting more media attention than it's gotten in ages...
And the receipts would tend to be higher in the ramp up, and the contract clause (if you read the complaint) grants a nice percentage of the receipts on licensed merchandise that involve elements he created for City. My guess, the contract clause was somehow fulfilled informally up until Crucible hit his radar (no offense, David), but didn't even get informally fulfilled in the last couple of years. By the clause in the complaint, without seeing the response, there's decent grounds to at least bring the case.
So is this actually a legitimate complaint then? I had figured that he was just pissed off and had no actual chance of winning anything.
even if CB was calling ellison that, based on how outspoken ellison is he'd probably say, "hell yeah!"
Some people actually MELLOW with age... ...I guess it's a forlorn hope to expect that of Mr. Ellison.
With Ellison, even once you get past the thunder and lightning, there does usually tend to be a vaild point in his ranting.
Interesting thing, of course, is that this situation has been ongoing since 2007, when the "Crucible" books drew his attention. There were considerable attempts to pursue it through the WGA which are discussed in the complaint and elsewhere. Absolutely. Ask "the King of the world" - oh, but you better stand far enough back to avoid the spittle.
It's interesting that he's lashing out against the WGA since he's one of their top members, if memory serves.