Unless the acquisition deal specifically transferred ownership without obligation. Please note that I’m not saying the acquisition deal absolutely does contain such terms. I’m saying that the possibility exists, as there’s precedent in the business world, and it’s not unrealistic for a company to want to come out of such an acquisition with as little new financial obligation as possible. (Another possibility, which I’ve heard of happening, is a royalty check showing up with fine print on it that endorsing the check and taking payment finalizes the deal, so no more royalties will be forthcoming. Pretty shady, but it happens. I believe that may be part of the Siegel and Shuster story, if I’m remembering properly.) If you’ve got access to sources that can verify the acquisition didn’t dismiss the obligation, cool. That makes it pretty cut-and-dried, and would probably be of interest to all of us here. Otherwise, all we can really do is - just like Jeff Trexler from the CBLDF - look at existing precedents and speculate on the kind of clauses that might be involved.

Please see later posts and the CBLDF Twitter threads linked. It basically boils down to how the contracts for Disney acquiring Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox were drawn up (and, for that matter, how the original contracts with LFL and whatever entity commissioned the Alien novel are written). It's possible that the acquisition contracts assigned ownership but not obligation. If that's the case, it still sucks, and it would certainly generate good will in the face of the public response to help Foster out. With none of us having access to the pertinent documents, we're all just armchair quarterbacking here. And, for better or for worse, ethics =/= law.

For those interested, the audio description says: "(Gideon) turns toward a shadowy cubicle where light gleams off a hint of shiny black armor resembling his own. Rows of similar compartments sprawl throughout the bay, with an engineer in white coveralls tending to immobilized Dark Troopers contained within."

Maybe more civil and engaging conversations with people? Especially when you’re dropping the “ackshewally” and/or the “emphasis” to act like you’re correcting someone by saying the very same thing they did? /shrug

I honestly couldn’t say. That’s why I’ve (at least tried to) made a point of using language like “could,” and “might,” and “maybe.” As was pointed out in the CBLDF thread, even in very similar circumstances, there are variables in play that lawyers get paid well to untangle while we armchair it here on a gaming message board.

For what it’s worth, light was streaming through the window washing some of my picture out, so who knows. 😁

Yeah, they didn’t look like Palpatine clones to me. I’d think that, just for the exposition needs, one of them would have said something like, “Isn’t that...the Emperor,” to clarify a point like that. Just seems to me that he’s trying to create a Force sensitive army. And maybe this plot is a spin on the Dark Trooper project, given the end shot?

Which is maybe why I said that? Have you ever resisted the urge to “ackshewally?”

Depends on what happened with the contracts during Disney’s acquisitions, as noted in the examination of how these things happen in the CBLDF threads I linked. After all, the Alien novelizations that are also part of the claim certainly weren’t contracted by LFL.

Follow up thread...

@P-47 Thunderbolt I see your message in my inbox. I’m not ignoring it, but my wife commandeered my laptop because hers doesn’t have the system requirements for something she’s doing for her side business. 🤣

Of course, that could be affected by WEG making all of the SWRPG content essentially public domain by releasing it online when WEG folded, which is how D6 Holocron can have it openly posted publicly.

Yeah, I am SO not even trying to summarize this.

A lawyer that works with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is currently doing a deep-dive thread on this sort of contract law on Twitter. It’s still in progress, but I’ll try to remember to summarize and/or link when they’re done.

I’d guess it depends on the specific terms of the contract(s) involved. Work made for hire contracts don’t often do the creators any favors. Infamously, in the 80s, DC Comics purchased characters from Charlton comics, and approached writer Alan Moore to pitch a limited series using them. They liked what he came up with, but felt it would leave the characters unusable for too long after its conclusion. So, he created analogous pastiches of the characters, and the book became Watchmen. Part of the contract was that, after the book went out of print for a certain period of time, rights to Watchmen would revert from DC to Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. But, it was such a hit, and demand has remained consistent, that it’s never been out of print since debuting in the mid-80s. Moore has been openly angry about the situation, vowing to never work with DC again, so much so that he was prepared to pull the plug on several creator-owned books when the Image Comics imprint they were under was purchased by DC.

They can publish it because they’re licensing the rights to the material (in this case, in the comics medium) from the owner of the IP. The licensee can produce new material and reprint existing material in the relevant medium. If there’s a demand for the material, it’ll be reprinted. Looking closer to “home,” what are the odds that the contributors to the WEG Star Wars RPG got any royalties when FFG reprinted as the 30th anniversary edition?

For better or for worse, it’s a long-standing aspect of contracts for work on licensed properties. Comics writer Kurt Busiek discussed it the other day on Twitter, using the Star Wars comics to illustrate. To paraphrase— - Marvel had the original SW comics license. Creators’ contracts were with Marvel, while ownership of the material was LFL’s due to being licensed material. Under their contract, creators received royalties from Marvel for reprints. - When Dark Horse obtained the license, those previous creators no longer received reprint royalties, as they had no contract with Dark Horse. Those creating new work received payment and reprint royalties from Dark Horse. - When Marvel got the license again, Dark Horse creators did not receive reprint royalties, because they had no contract with Marvel. (Busiek did not touch on this, but I’d presume the original Marvel run creators received no more reprint royalties, because those contracts had been nullified when Dark Horse acquired the license.) In all of these cases, it’s the publisher that’s party to the contract who’s responsible for paying the talent, although the ownership of the material (work made for hire) belongs to the licensor (LFL). It may suck. It may need to change. And there’s a strong argument to be made for the IP owner to step up if a prominent contributor to the IP is in dire straits (say hi to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster). But, it’s a long-standing aspect of how such contracts work.

Yep. There was a pretty clear implication that the Quarren had run this routine before. And Koska Reeves was watching Mando in the port. If the Quarren had run this trap before, and Koska saw a new Mando arrive, not unreasonable for them to come to the reascue.

If she’s in it, it will be a reveal at the very end. Meanwhile, Dave Filoni wrote and directed the episode after that. No way would he entrust his baby’s transition to live action to anyone else.

At least the “ackshewally” didn’t come with the normal random “emphasis.” Take the win. 🤣

I forget who it was, but someone created an adversary card template for Magic Set Editor, a Magic: The Gathering custom card creator software. Easy to use to enter the info into the template, but the template just isn't quite what I'd like out of it. I just have no clue how to create a template for MSE. If you can't find the template on MSE's site, let me know, and I can get it to you.

Season 1’s episodes ranged from 31 minutes to 48, with the remaining 6 run times somewhere in between. So, no, I’m not worried.

It’s kinda funny. To the best of my knowledge, Netflix is the only streaming service that has adopted the model of dropping an entire season at once (wisely, usually on a Friday to allow those so inclined to take the weekend to binge the season). And yet, viewers seem to expect all of the other services - Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, CBS All Access, HBO Max, just to name a few - to follow that same model when they never have, and are surprised when they don’t.

See my earlier post, re: his snacking both reminding the audience that he's very food motivated to set up the big climax of the episode and also demonstrating that it reinforces that he's not getting a great example of behavior. In other words, I think you were supposed to be bothered by it.

“Cute” in the manner of acting predictably based on established behavior, maybe. I’d say, though, that it served dual purposes: reemphasizing his being very food motivated to set up his chowing down on a spider egg to unleash the swarm on them; demonstrating that the Mando isn’t great at supervising him or instilling boundaries in him, following the same development thread as when he Force choked Cara during the arm wrestling match. (After all, was Mando upset at him eating the eggs because they were the passenger’s potential offspring, or because it might foul his own wants?) No more or less so than it did in 1980. /shrug