silentspace said:
Yes, they were definitely off-topic and clearly had their own axes to grind.
Heh, it's kind of like watching your parents fight, you ask me. Fascinating, and you love 'em both, but you want them to stop it.
Again, I don't know much about the industry, but as I said earlier, I don't think the writers will be asking for "millions" as some think. They may not even ask for anything. And some of their contracts are probably written so that they can't ask for anything. Jolly said that his contract was written to include the publisher's rights to republish electronically, but he negotiated that out. I would guess that a lot of people didn't negotiate that out so don't have a say in it either way. I would further guess that those who do have a say (those who negotiated their rights) won't ask for much, will they? They probably weren't paid much for their original articles. So I doubt they would turn around now and demand "millions".
I do see the problem with finding some of the writers from the old days, but really, how big of a problem is that? So what, they have to make a few phone calls? And if they can't locate a writer, then just don't include their work. Simple. Sorry, I just don't have much sympathy for the publishers here.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think you've missed a few points.
First, let's talk about "they won't ask for much, will they?" You make the assumption that they are ethical, reasonable and have an actual desire for their material to see print. It's obvious from the discussion above that Jolly and Sean aren't on the best of terms, and that's hardly an uncommon occurence in the industry. Let's pretend that Publisher X suddenly was reprinting Dragon magazine. What if Sean decided he didn't want Publisher X to succeed, no matter what? What if Sean was a money-grubbing jerk (which to my knowledge, he certainly is NOT) who knew that Publisher X couldn't publish without his cooperation, and he needed some cash? What if he just has an unreasonable and overinflated sense of the value of his work? On the reverse end, what if Publisher X was pure evil....like say
Lorraine Williams was. Sean might find he'd have to sacrifice some serious rights to see print...or perhaps he might compromise his ability to use the material again. Maybe he had already secured separate rights like Jolly had, and was already moving to publish them on his own...and agreeing to Publisher X's project would mean he'd have to cancel his own? Not to mention the trust issue....TSR burned many creators towards the end of it's life, and WotC has destroyed it's share of bridges, too. Some people just may resist on principle alone...especially if they spent months getting payment when the work was new.
Second, "So what, they have to make a few phone calls?" is not that simple, either. Quick, find Dave Trampier. If you move at the speed of the D&D community, you should be able to find him in......15 years or so. Of ACTIVE SEARCHING. Trampier dropped out of the gaming/art community, and disappeared off of the face of the earth. The only reason anyone knows where he is? He showed up in a minor newspaper article as a
taxi cab driver. Could he have been found faster? Probably. But the margins on these kind of products don't allow for that sort of thing. Spending $10,000 or $20,000 to find Dave Trampier isn't worth it. As it was, they took a risk and printed it anyways. But at the same time, many people would have been very disappointed if "Wormy" wasn't included in the Archive. Imagine if that happened with 10 different authors. People might reject the project as incomplete, invalidating it.
Third, many of the authors/artists/creators signed contracts back in the ripe and heady days of the late 70s and early 80s. When "Gandlaf was a 4th-level Wizard" was written, BBSes hadn't caught on yet, let alone USENET, e-mail or the web. Contracts didn't consider future possibiliies, any more than current contracts consider holographic reproduction or thoughtwave broadcast. As such, they might have to hire a lawyer to negotiate such details, or engage an agent...and they may be 10 or 20 years out of gaming and away from the business with no interest in bothering with such trifles, now.
It's not that cut-and-dried, I'm afraid.