Harlan Ellison Sues CBS-Paramount, WGA

COMMENTS (40)

• Go, Harlan, Go!

  Paramount, like ALL the studios, robs people blind (especially the poor writers) then falls back on the ever popular slogan, “So sue us.” They hit you with a paper blizzard from their councel, hoping to outlast all you smart folk out there. (translation: hoping that you either A) run out of money to carry the lawsuit forward over many years, or B) you die before the end of the appeals process. If you win AND are still alive, the execs don’t give a shit. As one Warners counsel told me about the plagiarism lawsuit of Superman III involving Barry Taff & Ken Stoller many years ago, “So what? We’re indemified.” The insurance company pays, not the studio. Ha ha ha.

  Paramount’s execs are pretty stupid in not knowing the man they are dealing with in this case. Harlan is absolutely ferocious in his tenacity to get his rights, money, etc. — unlike most others writers & actors.

  - He will never give up.
  - He’s got everything, evidence-wise, he needs (I’d bet a house on this)
  - He has no fear of being blacklisted; he’s a working novelist & essayist & can always be published.
  - He won’t be bullied or cowed into submission by their litigators.

  I remember him saying, “Do I hold grudges? I’m still working on ones from 20 years ago.”

  But back to Paramount. He sued them a long time ago in a very bitter piece of action & won. He will win again; make no mistake. He will take those Paramount execs by the balls & utterly humiliate & destroy them in court. You don’t think so? You don’t know Harlan, kid.

  These Paramount morons don’t have any idea of the ride they are in for, and I applaud Harlan for making a show of this in public (oh, he will).

  Harlan, burn their asses!

  Comment by JSR — Monday March 16, 2009 @ 7:55pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I’m not a fan of Harlan Ellison’s version of City, and I applaud that they had the courage to change it to fit the series and weathered all his rants…

  … but all of that… and most of what is on this thread is besides the point.

  The way television and film and copyright works is that if you create a character or a concept, you own it and you have to be paid a fee by a company trying to exploit it. We all know damn well that Paramount doesn’t allow companies to exploit the name of Star Trek without paying them a fee for their ownership rights. And it doesn’t matter if the name is Sherlock Holmes, James T. Kirk or Homer Simpson or the Daleks — if you use someone else’s creation you have to pay a fee for the use. Even if it’s in the same series, if you use a character in episode 12, written by author B, who was created in episode 3 by author A, then you have to pay a fee for the use. No matter how much Gene Coon or Roddenberry changed City, they didn’t change the concept of the script, they didn’t change the name of the Guardian of Forever to the Ring of Time, and they didn’t change Edith Keeler’s name to Jane Smith, her job description, what she did, what she meant or any of those things. Or even that Spock made the future viewer from radio tubes and such. That’s why Harlan got his sole credit, it was mostly his ideas. From what I can remember from reading Harlan’s story, the big change in the concept was that Harlan had Kirk ready to sacrifice the universe for love and wouldn’t let her be killed and Spock had to step in and do it. Which is a grand concept for a one-off story, and may have been why he won his award, but it’s a lousy ending for an ongoing series. The writing staff changed it so the hero of the show, Kirk, ACTS HEROICALLY, and sacrifices the only true love of his life for the good of the universe, so that you get at the end:
  Kirk, eyes squeezed tight against the sight of what he’s done.
  McCoy: Jim, do you know what you’ve done?
  Spock: He knows, Doctor, he knows.

  So if Paramount now wants to make books or whatever off the parts of that episode that were clearly Harlan’s creation, or toys or whatever, they have to pay him. After all, the Paramount suits didn’t have the foresight to think up the Guardian of Forever.

  Comment by how quickly we forget rights here — Monday March 16, 2009 @ 7:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @ Luzid:

  No, the court did not. The production company and distributor reached a settlement with him, so the matter was never adjudicated.

  I remain unconvinced that he would have prevailed.

  Comment by 398 — Monday March 16, 2009 @ 8:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

• This whole thing will probably be settled out of court and, of course, all parties involved will be unable to divulge the specifics … so who cares? It’s not like the outcome of this case is going to change how Paramount does business nor will it cosy anyone their job.

  Comment by Von Bruno — Tuesday March 17, 2009 @ 4:44am PDT  Reply to this post

• More power to Harlan.

  People forget that he has left money on the table rather than participate in studio nonsense.

  Years ago, he was hired to be the head writer on the CBS revival of TWILIGHT ZONE (after the 1980s writers strike, when they were in a revivial frenzy).

  They started off strong with an adaptation of Ellison’s “Shatterday,” about a guy who accidentally dials his own telephone number – and hears himself at home, answering it. A great, under-rated performance by Bruce Willis.

  Harlan resigned in protest over an episode about an airplane hijacking. He wanted to have the hijackers all be from some mideastern jihad (this was years before 9/11 or the first attack on the World Trade Center). CBS decided to make it a coalition of hijackers representing the FALN, Chinese mobsters, etc.

  In other words, as Harlan saw it, CBS was afraid to OFFEND TERRORISTS. So he quit.

  Harlan Ellison. An original spirit, a fresh voice, an undying iconoclast.

  Comment by MrJeff — Tuesday March 17, 2009 @ 9:17am PDT  Reply to this post

• This isn’t news. It’s only news when Ellison DOESN’T sue someone. He sues everyone. According to Ellison, he invented everything since the beginning of time, and anything remotely genre related is a rip off of his work.

  And he’s NEVER been appropriately paid for anything in his life.

  Lame-thetic Ellison… lamethetic…

  Comment by Raider — Tuesday March 17, 2009 @ 9:34am PDT  Reply to this post

• If Harlan devoted the same energy to thinking and writing that he does to fighting and bitching, he’d be the best-known, best-loved writer in America and richer than Croesus to boot.

  Comment by TomF — Tuesday March 17, 2009 @ 11:01am PDT  Reply to this post

• >>>you insensitive clod!

  Hey, better than a FAIL Know-It-All.

  @398 and others: Some history is in order here. Cameron HIMSELF stated in an interview with magazine Cinfantastique that Terminator was damned well VERY INFLUENCED by Harlan Ellison’s Outer Limits episode, Soldier. When Cameron was reviewing the Q&A galleys, he specifically asked CFQ to delete that. Someone at CFQ rightly ratted him out for it and thus Ellison had a case STRAIGHT FROM CAMERON’S OWN YAP. It was Slam-Dunk. THAT is why they settled. They had ZERO defense. ZERO.

  Comment by Mike Cane — Tuesday March 17, 2009 @ 3:50pm PDT  Reply to this post

• “You still don’t get it, do you? He’ll find them! That’s what he does! It’s ALL he does! You can’t stop him! He’ll wait for them! He’ll reach down their throat and tear their f**kin’ hearts out!” Few people are so fueled by pure principle as Harlan. He fights the fights that other authors are too afraid, too poor, too corrupted, or too myopic to fight themselves. Although it’s better to have others die for their own sins, H.E. has often (such as versus AOL) jeopardized his own future so other creators might have one. In re: Paramount, a deal is a deal, and if the WGA has failed to enforce their own MBA, they add to the problem. Sometimes you have to sue people when sending them a dead gopher won’t do the trick.

  Comment by Santayana — Tuesday March 17, 2009 @ 6:14pm PDT  Reply to this post

• It’s a moot point. All Paramount has to do is spin this out 5-7 years (waaay easy to do), knowing that by 2015 Ellison will either be 1)Dead, 2) Completely Senile, or 3) Broke. Then they settle with his estate. While the City on the Edge of Forever was one of the best Trek episodes, it’s funny that you never hear anything about the estate of Theodore Sturgeon suing Paramount, and he effectively created half of what we know about Vulcan society & customs. Then again, Ted wasn’t a class book Narcissist. Hmmm–maybe someone should sue him for all the advances from different publishers he took for the non-existent LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS?

  Comment by Elrod — Wednesday March 18, 2009 @ 1:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Harlan!
  I KNOW you’re reading this!!!
  We met years and years ago on a TV episode you wrote. We ran into each other through the years and always shared a laugh. You were crazy then and – thank God – you’re still crazy now! Go for it!!!

  P.S.
  If you have a couple of extra tickets to the afterlife let me know!

  Comment by Anonymous — Wednesday March 18, 2009 @ 3:13pm PDT  Reply to this post

• This is PAST history, time to move on.. Just get a job Harlan – if you still can!
  This guy is just looking for some cheap money to get!

  Comment by jashuh — Friday May 22, 2009 @ 8:11am PDT  Reply to this post

• I thought the “Outer Limits” episode that most resembled “The Terminator” was “The Man Who Was Never Born” from the first season wth Matin Landau. I heard the show’s creator, Joseph Stefano, say the same thing in a radio interview. You know, it also resembles “City on the Edge of Forever.”

  Comment by Will Edelan — Tuesday June 23, 2009 @ 7:34pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Paramount, like most corporations, is all about making money. They believe that they own every concept, name, plot, and character that is used in any movie, episode, and show that they own. But the reality is that they didn’t create the concepts, names, plots, and characters that they are exploiting. It was the individual writers. Harlan has fought for the rights of writers for his entire career. If you’re not a writer then I’m sure this sounds like it’s meaningless, trivial, and petty. But Harlan is out there fighting a noble fight. Paramount has made over a billion dollars with Star Trek. They can’t cough up a small chunk of change that is actually owed to the guy for his ideas. Give me a break! But the reality is that Paramount believes they own them and can do anything they want, anytime they want.
  Harlan’s not a big fan of Roddenberry but how much of the millions in profit Paramount made from the new movie do you think they gave to Roddenberry’s estate? Little or nothing would be my guess.
  Thanks Harlan. I appreciate your fight and wish you luck. Kick their @sses.

  Comment by Grendal — Thursday June 25, 2009 @ 6:17pm PDT  Reply to this post