#pay-the-writer #disneymustpay

[=Tamar]

Disney corporation
https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#pay-the-writer

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

They had been ripping off Adam Dean Foster for ages with help he contested them and won.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Disney are scum. It's sad but not surprising that they're at it. After all, they were founded by a racist, sexist anti-Semite. I wouldn't put it past the man himself to have stiffed his workers, too.

Having said that, this bit ...

Here's where things get criminally weird. Disney argued that when they bought out Lucas, Fox, etc, they acquired their assets, but not their liabilities. In other words, they'd acquired the right to sell Foster's work, but not the obligation to pay him when they did.

... is criminal. I've worked in accounts for 16 years; granted, I've worked only as an accounts clerk, but even I know that both assets and liabilities are listed on a company's balance sheet. This is a financial statement that shows a company's financial health. When you add up all your assets, then deduct your liabilities, you get the company's equity -- i.e. what your company's net worth is.

This is a basic part of accounting, for heaven's sake. I learned it when I took Accounting 101. It's also the first thing that shows up when you google "assets and liabilities".

Does that mean I am more honest than Disney's accountants, lawyers, management and/or Board of Directors? Well, if the article is anything to go by, that wouldn't be hard.

I won't say I'm necessarily smarter, though. To commit a fraud of this magnitude, you have to be either very, very clever or very, very dumb. It sounds like Disney thought they were clever. It turns out they were dumb.

This is not how copyright contracts work, period.

That's not how the real world works, either. However, Disney have plenty of clever and highly-paid lawyers who can probably argue that black is white (and hopefully get killed at the next zebra crossing).

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

I liked that last paragraph.( However, Disney have plenty of clever and highly-paid lawyers who can probably argue that black is white (and hopefully get killed at the next zebra crossing).

 

[RathDarkblade]

*LOL* I paraphrased it from Douglas Adams's "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In the original, it is Man who proves that God doesn't exist -- and for an encore, proves that black is white (and does get killed at the next zebra crossing).

 

[raisindot]

There are countless reasons for hating Disney. This is just another one.

If you ever want to read how about how Disney essentially runs its own fascist state in Florida, read Team Rodent by Carl Haaisen.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

I always thought it was a bit too authoritarian with its employees from some of the stories I've about Disneyland sites.

 

[raisindot]

Disney are scum. It's sad but not surprising that they're at it. After all, they were founded by a racist, sexist anti-Semite.

As a Jewish person, I'm no fan of Disney in general or Walt Disney in particular, but he did hire numerous Jewish people to work on his films and serve as executives in the company and there's little evidence to support that he personally expressed anti-Jewish views at them or anyone in public. He was a founder of studio organizations that were virulently antisemitic, but these people were also very conservative and anti-communist, which would have aligned with his views. If he was an antisemite, he wouldn't have been considered an outlier. Antisemitism pervaded nearly all levels of American society and the easing of institutional antisemitism only started easing in the late 1950s. In other words, as an antisemitic bigot, he would have reflected mainstream American views at the time.

And as a Jewish person, one thing that totally embarrasses me is that Disney's take-no-prisoners business practices have been fully embraced by the past three presidents of Disney Corp--Robert Iger, Michael Eisner, and Mike Ovitz--all of whom are/were Jewish and known to be total bastards. That said, I'm not attributing their nefarious actions to their Jewish identify--they're merely acting like typical greedy American media moguls.