The New York Times reports:
In
what it bills as an industry-defining moment - though rivals are sure to be
skeptical about that - Disney Publishing plans to introduce a new
subscription-based Web site. For $79.95 a year, families can access electronic
replicas of hundreds of Disney books, from "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger
Too" to "Hannah Montana: Crush-tastic!"
I’m wondering how the authors of those books will be paid. Having
done work for Disney in the past, I know they’re partial to total buy-outs and
‘work for hire’ contracts for writers, so perhaps that’s not an issue for most
of these books. But if it does become an “industry-defining” moment, writers
will have to be very alert.
The usual come-on at the early stages of something like this is
for the companies to say, “There’s not much money in it yet, if you charge too
much you’ll kill the whole thing, take a pittance until it takes off.”
When it does take off, they fight tooth-and-nail not to increase
the payments. It happened with DVDs, it was what the most recent Writers
Guild strike was about, and this could be the next battleground.
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