I saw something about this in passing yesterday, and it is flabberghastingly outrageous. They have purchased the rights of the contract but not the liabilities?? What the actual everloving heck?
In conjunction with Joan He's recent dispute with her publisher (
details here, summary being: they didn't pay her, ignored her when she declared the contract therefore broken and claimed her rights back, and published another version of the book, ignoring a cease & desist order) I am shouting, "What is WRONG with people?!" even more than usual these days.
But a significant difference between those cases is that He's publisher is relatively small compared to the leviathan that is Disney. In the instance of huge legal battles, Disney has far more resources than just about anyone. If every member of the SFWA declares they will no longer work with Disney, that won't even matter, because there will always be newcomers keen and eager to take on the work.
But in both cases, it's interesting that the power of social media as a tool for spreading the word has been harnessed. I'm going to be very interested to see what happens next with Alan Dean Foster and Disney.
