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Rune: "It is perfectly fair. If the initial agreement is "You get paid THIS
amount to do THIS for us" then that is it."
Dan Shane has done an admirable job of responding to most of Rune's points, so I won't belabor them here. I do want to point out, however, that my argument goes slightly further than Don Rosa's or Dan Shane's. They are, correctly, talking about publishers who use Don's name without his permission. I'm talking about a bigger issue which underlies these other issues. As I said before, these are my opinions, not Dan's or Don's. It boils down to this: what is "legal" is often not "fair." Yes, it is LEGAL for Egmont and Disney and other Disney publishers to exploit the work of the thousands of artists and writers who create work-for-hire content for them. It is LEGAL for them to pay for a story only ONCE, and then to freely give that story out to be used in dozens of different markets throughout the world. It is not FAIR for them to do so. It is not morally correct for them to do so. It is wrong for them to do so.
I base this assertion on the simple fact that almost no other medium allows such exploitation. If you sell a magazine story, the major markets purchase First North American printing rights (or the rights for the specific European language the book will be published in). If magazines in markets in other parts of the world wish to print that same story, those magazines have to PURCHASE the story from the artist/writer. The apparent fairness of this seems so obvious to everyone working in almost every other field, that it is the common practice in magazine publishing, novel publishing, non-fiction publishing, video game publishing, computer game publishing, play publishing, music publishing, Hollywood movie publishing, DVD publishing, etc. Even by the standards of comic book publishers, which admittedly have been slow to recognize the rights of the talent who work for them, Disney publishing is stingy and unfair to a fault. I work in the computer game industry, creating co
ntent, both artwork and writing, that is owned by Sony Computer Entertainment of America. I get paid a good salary to write and draw for them. I make royalties from sales of games in the US. When Sony sells the game in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and England, I make royalties for each of those markets. Sony doesn't *have* to do this: they just believe in allowing everyone who creates for them, to share in the profits of their creations. And Sony, fairly, recognizes that these additional world markets represent additional income that Sony is going to make from that original work that I created.
And don't misunderstand me: I realize perfectly well that if a writer/artist is working with established Disney characters, that that artist/writer will not "own" those characters. I will even go along with the notion that if a writer/artist creates a "new" character for a Disney story, that Disney/Egmont will OWN that character as well, and can hire other writers/artists to do new stories using that character. But I don't believe that it is fair for Disney/Egmont to pay for a story for one market, and use that story in other markets, without paying for it again. Also, I do not believe that it is fair for Disney/Egmont to REPRINT existing stories, without paying a reprint fee/royalty. And I certainly do not believe that it is fair for them to compile an entire book from the work of a single writer/artist, use that writer/artist's name to sell the book, without paying that writer/artist a hefty royalty!
While you are pondering what's fair and the rights of Disney/Egmont, don't forget that Barks himself worked for some thirty odd years at the lower end of the American Income bracket, almost literally chained to his drawing board seven days a week, while his stories, in his peak years in the mid 1950s, sold millions of books in the US alone. How many books did his stories sell across the European markets? Barks deserved better from the comic book industry. Yes, he eventually made money from his paintings and lithographs, but certainly Barks deserved the kind of financial success that writers/artists like Charles Schulz, Bob Kane, or Todd McFarlane enjoyed, when he was young enough to have spent it foolishly. The Disney Publishing Machine needs to come to its senses and realize that if the name and work of a creator will sell books, lots of books, then maybe they should pay that creator what he is worth. If they are smart, they will pay Don Rosa whatever he is asking for,
because it's probably not even close to what they should be paying him, if fairness entered into their thinking at all.
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