Dreadful treatment of a great writer.

[jaybe]

I can't believe this has been allowed to happen -

Conlan Press - Peter S. Beagle Fund - You Can Help!

[beer good]

So basically, he wants money because Peter Jackson once saw a film he worked on and got paid the agreed amount for?

[Bob Magness]

It keeps mentioning promises that weren't kept. What promises? It doesn't say.

[pontalba]

Yes, there is a lot of vagueness regarding the promises that were supposed to have been made, but it appears that Jackson's interest was sparked by the script that Beagle wrote.
This is the part that partially convinces me.

But we don’t all know that Saul Zaentz has been paid nearly two hundred million dollars out of the earnings of Peter Jackson's films, as payment for Zaentz's Tolkien rights. And we don’t all know that the Saul Zaentz Company refuses to use any of their huge income to finally make good on the promises that Zaentz made to Peter,

[bolding mine]

If Zaentz has profited from the animated film that Beagle wrote, it seems fair that Beagle as the 'talent' should also profit.

[Peder]

Originally Posted by jaybe

I can't believe this has been allowed to happen -

You mean among people?

It sounds like there is a piece of paper and a signature somewhere, and that all else may be words -- worth exactly the air they are written on.

So, no there may never be "justice" -- just a written contract.

[pontalba]

Originally Posted by Peder

So no there may never be "justice" -- just a written contract.

Sadly too true. My grandfather was a lawyer, and he used to say that if a man's word was not good, his signature wasn't either.
Loopholes.

[beer good]

Originally Posted by pontalba

If Zaentz has profited from the animated film that Beagle wrote, it seems fair that Beagle as the 'talent' should also profit.

Except that the talent on which Jackson based his film, the talent he paid for, isn't Beagle's but Tolkien's. Jackson based his film on Tolkien's books, not Beagle's script. Beagle was hired and paid to write a script for Zaentz for a specific adaptation of the book, and as I understand it, that's the end of his involvement. Jackson paid Zaentz for the rights he held to make a new movie based on the books, not for the rights to the existing animated movie that Beagle worked on. Would it be nice for Zaentz to pay Beagle a share? Sure. Has he broken any promises to Beagle? Well, since nobody is able to say what promises were allegedly broken, who knows. But just because Jackson was partly inspired by once having seen the movie Beagle scripted (and was paid for, like all the other talents who worked on that movie) doesn't mean Beagle has any legal or - arguably - moral claims to get money from a film that is in no way based on his own work.

Compare this situation: When Guns 'n Roses recorded Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door", you can be sure that Dylan got paid for it (he's got good lawyers). But Eric Clapton, Randy Crawford, or any other artist who had also covered the song? They didn't get a dime. Why? Simple: it's not their song, no matter how much Axl Rose may have listened to and been inspired by their versions. And if Clapton doesn't get any money, you can be even more sure that the studio musicians who were paid to play on his recording get even less.

[pontalba]

I see your point Beergood, but if Zaentz, who was also inspired by Tolkien's work profited, shouldn't the adapting screenwriter profit as well?

I don't know what is legally correct, I'm certainly not an entertainment lawyer. It just seems to me that the profit should trickle down. As you mention, Dylan had good lawyers, and I dislike the unfairness that implies.

[beer good]

Originally Posted by pontalba

I see your point Beergood, but if Zaentz, who was also inspired by Tolkien's work profited, shouldn't the adapting screenwriter profit as well?

Zaentz profited because he owned the legal rights to make movies of Tolkien's work and had presumably, at some point, paid Tolkien's estate (or paid someone who had paid someone etc) for it. Not because he had once made a movie based on the books, but because he owned the rights to make a new movie based on the books. Beagle was hired to work on a different movie, signed a contract, and was paid for it. The rights were never his.

I don't know what is legally correct, I'm certainly not an entertainment lawyer. It just seems to me that the profit should trickle down. As you mention, Dylan had good lawyers, and I dislike the unfairness that implies.

I didn't mean to imply any unfairness, quite the opposite. Dylan wrote the song*, he owns the rights to it, so I don't see how it would be unfair that he gets paid when someone makes money from it. The lawyer comment was more to point out that it's often been common in music that people less legally savvy don't get paid - take, for instance, the bluesmen Led Zeppelin ripped off in every other song, and who rarely saw any money from it. That's unfair. Clapton's bass player not getting paid for Guns 'n Roses covering Dylan's song is not.

* OK, one might argue that "Knocking On Heaven's Door" is very similar to Neil Young's "Helpless", but Neil Young has good lawyers too and if he's never complained, I won't either.

[pontalba]

Whoops, beer good, the unfairness I was speaking of was more on the point of fact that it sometimes takes having a good lawyer to receive what is rightfully yours.
'Course, that's a whole nuther ball of wax.

[sparkchaser]

Originally Posted by beer good

So basically, he wants money because Peter Jackson once saw a film he worked on and got paid the agreed amount for?

That's how I read it too.

[Peder]

Maybe so, but somehow I think that if it were that simple we wouldn't still be talking about it.

[beer good]

Well, we've only been talking about it for... what, a couple of hours?

[Peder]

Originally Posted by beer good

Well, we've only been talking about it for... what, a couple of hours?

Yes, we here. However, I had more in mind the actual origin of the issue in 2007-8 according to one of the links given.

[beer good]

*shrug* There are always going to be people who refuse to give up. Simply being stubborn doesn't make their case valid, though (there are still people who claim the Earth is flat, too). If it's been going for several years, you'd think they would have had the time to specify what it was he was promised, exactly, and how that is in any way connected to Jackson's movie.