Harlan Ellison Sues For "Star Trek" Episode 483
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.'"
Sounds like someone is jealous (Score:2, Interesting)
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.'"
Is there an actionable contract dispute here or is this guy just ranting since he is on the short end of the Hollywood stick? Guess what, dude, we all are.
Re:wow (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!
He's right (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anti-DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Watch that cunt get modded 'insightful'!
Re:Harlen (Score:2, Interesting)
Not going to defend Ellison (whom I despise) but the contract is neither here nor there. Hollywood studios are really good at fiddling the books so that they don't have to pay people. The contract can say that they have to pay $5 for every dollar of profit, and the writer can still get hosed.
There are movies out there that have been blockbuster successes and are still officially in the red.
Re:First he bitches about it then wants more credi (Score:1, Interesting)
Stop regurgitating Roddenberry lies.
http://www.amazon.com/City-Edge-Forever-Original-Teleplay/dp/1565049640
The original screenplay did need some revisions to fit in with the startrek story line, but only fairly minor ones.
He has a point. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
> What is Star-Trek? ...an old TV show that should be in the public domain by now.
Royalties Schmoyalties.
If not for the law being bent out of shape in order to benefit
the fat cats and moguls that he's complaining about right now,
he wouldn't have any standing to sue those same fat cats and
moguls.
Harlan is once again showing himself to be the posterboy for copyright reform.
I take it he dont like Pirate Bay much either (Score:1, Interesting)
Arrrr, matie. City on the Edge of Tomorrow, ay? Copyright long ago exipred fer ya, matie! Go suck a squid befores I make you walks the plank, ya scurrvy pox ridden land lubber.
Who thinks rationally about copyright? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia says he got a "cash settlement". More than he deserved, since his only contribution to that movie was to write some stories that James Cameron says "inspired him".
Didn't know about that incident before you brought it to my attention. Another reason to dislike a man I already despise. Compare with this incident over another Star Trek ep, "The Trouble With Tribbles": when Paramount asked Robert Heinlein to waive any claim over creatures that strongly resembled flatcats, Heinlein responded, "I have no patent on small furry aliens!"
neat! (Score:2, Interesting)
I never considered the option of suing someone for $1. That's brilliant. For threat of a suit they'll capitulate simply to avoid legal fees but it will bolster his position being able to say he successfully sued the guild in regards to their complicity.
Lawyers are tricky!
Copyright lets studios coast on reruns (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed. I don't understand why Hollywood lets so many movies tank because while they are willing to pay millions for big name actors but can't be bothered to buy a decent script. Obviously cost isn't the issue, as lots of less expensive films and TV shows (the old Doctor Who comes to mind) do get decent scripts.
Copyright is one of the things that makes it possible for them to do this. Instead of paying actors, scriptwriters, and so on for new material, the studios can coast on their back catalog (as with Gilligan's Island, which someone mentioned upthread). The system may be great for a few superstars, but for the ordinary Joe who pays the bills with steady work, long strong copyright is a bad thing.
Not that Harlan would let that stand in the way of a good rant about ordinary folk people "stealing" his stuff. Still, whatever the legal facts of this case, I'm more inclined to side with him than the MAFIAA.
Re:On one hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
.. 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 remember seeing Harlan Ellison talk about this particular point. He was so adamant regarding why logical Spock was the only one able to do this, and how the show's producers totally ruined the script when they rewrote it so Kirk had to let her die. But in my mind the rewrite is perfect in the way it defines Kirk's character in a nutshell - the ultimate devotion to duty and "what's right" above all else, and the self-imposed purgatory that comes with it.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, actually. Her case was thrown out.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp [snopes.com]
Re:On one hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a reason it's pretty much universally hailed as probably the very best Trek script, of ToS or the spinoffs, and that's precisely because of what you said. It's an incredible bit of tragedy, dare I say a Shakespearean moment. It also goes a great distance to defining Spock and Kirk's relationship. When Spock defends what to Bones seems like an insane action of allowing her to die, Spock demonstrates his fundamental empathy with Kirk; nowhere else is Spock's underlying "humanness" so clearly, and yet with understatement and respect for the character, made. This isn't Spock infected by some weirdo alien virus losing his composure, this IS the logical, contained Spock seeing his friend's unbelievable pain at allowing the woman he loved to die to save the future.
Only once after that did Shatner's acting approach the sublime; and that was in the otherwise so-so Star Trek III, when he finds out his son has been murdered. For the most part, Shatner was an over-actor, although I suppose it did fit the character of Kirk (or more likely, Shatner put his own stamp on the character).
At any rate, I think I'll watch the episode again, and ponder, whatever it's murky origins, how The City On The Edge Of Tomorrow is the greatest of all the Treks.
Re:It was over 40 years ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Copyright protects the right to make derivative works.
"Derivative work" is a wonderfully vague term, but has often been held to apply to re-use of the same characters or setting. Create a new movie with Luke Skywalker or Neo or Sarah Conner, I'd expect the courts to hold that you've created a derivative work and violated copyright.
Apparently, a series of Star Trek books was published that used a couple of elements from Ellison's story. If Ellison owns the rights to "City on the Edge of Forever" (which he might not, if it was a work for hire) and if these books are derivative works, he might have a case.
Regardless of what you think of H.E., (Score:3, Interesting)
Rock on, Harlan.
Re:On one hand... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank goodness. I thought I was all alone in feeling this way about Ellison's "City" script. It's a steaming turd of poor writing that respects none of the conventions of the show in which he brutally tried to shoe-horn it. It makes characters act in uncharacteristic ways, gets preachy at the wrong moments, and all in all just plain sucks. I'll go further: I haven't read anything by Ellison that even remotely justifies his reputation as a mover-and-shaker in science fiction. It's all pretentious, tedious, smug crap. He's just someone who caught the New Wave and rode it for all it was worth, and was catapulted far beyond his meager talents.
Harlan Ellison is a nightmare from which science fiction is waiting to awaken.
Re:wow (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!
Ellison is an angry, angry man (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.
Re:Principle (Score:3, Interesting)
You sue for justice to remedy a bad situation. It's not about "he who sueth for the largest $ amount wins" , though that theory seems to have been tried by the RIAA.
Legal fees (Score:2, Interesting)
If this is a combined suit, wouldn't including the Guild as a defendent make it possible for the court to award legal fees to Ellison, which would (assuming he is correct) be "poetic" justice, since the Guild, who was supposed to be suing for him in the first place so he wouldn't need to pay legal fees, would end up paying (at least in part) his legal fees?