Star Wars Novelist Says Disney Won’t Pay Him Royalties it Owes Him
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:
Star Wars novelist says Disney won't pay him royalties it owes him:
Alan Dean Foster, author of several Star Wars novelizations, says Disney hasn't paid him his royalties. According to Foster, Disney has asked him to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the company will speak with him. According to SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal, Disney is arguing that when it bought Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox, they bought contract rights - but not the legal obligation to pay Foster for his work.
[...] Foster ghost-wrote the novelization of Star Wars: A New Hope, under the byline of George Lucas; it was published in 1976 before the movie's release. He also published a sequel to Star Wars, Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012; according to Foster, Disney stopped paying him royalties. Last year, Disney bought 20th Century Fox, acquiring the rights to some other novelizations by Foster: Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3. Disney hasn't paid Foster a dime on any of the Alien books, he says.
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