When a published author and his copyrighted work is used in a film or TV show does that author have the right to be paid for the use of his or her creation?

Peter S. Beagle wrote a pretty famous book called The Last Unicorn. You’ve probably heard of it. Well, the London based Granada Media has heard of it. In fact, they have sold over a half of a million copies of The Last Unicorn DVD’s and videotapes; not counting the millions of dollars they have made on merchandising, cable distribution of the product and live action remakes of the famous book.

From those multi-millions that Granada Media has made, Beagle was due several hundreds of thousands of dollars. How much of that owed money has he been able to bank? Nothing! Why? Because, the media giant, using all kinds of excuses and legal wranglings won’t cough up the money they owe him.

You may be thinking – well, it’s Beagle’s book but did he have a contract with Granada Media and was he directly involved in any way with the film project?

The answer to both questions is yes. Beagle has a 1979 contract of which Granada Media is in default and Beagle was about as involved as one can be on any movie project – he wrote the screenplay from which the film was made.

Many may not realize it but this kind of injustice occurs more often than not. We never hear much about it because most authors who go through this are not of the public stature of a Peter S. Beagle; and the thought of them taking on a giant media corporation with their bank of professional legal staff is just too overwhelming. They end up either walking away empty-handed or with the small crumbs that fall from the corporation’s table.

That kind of treatment has to stop. Proper renumeration of an author or screenwriter’s creation must be protected. If you want to get involved in righting a wrong go to the Conlan Press’ “Call To Action” to help, not only Peter, but every person’s created work from the abuses of this kind from corporate hijacking.