Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman vs WotC

bjon045

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Interesting news that MW and TH have served papers on WotC for breach of contract and a few other things.

All the details are here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7245020-Weis.html

We were about to get another trilogy of Dragonlance books (they had already finished book 1) and then WotC terminates it. Most disappointing.
 
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Interesting news that MW and TH have served papers on WotC for breach of contract and a few other things.

All the details are here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7245020-Weis.html

We were about to get another trilogy of Dragonlance books (they had already finished book 1) and then WotC terminates it. Most disappointing.

Unfortunately to be expected from WOTC due to their culture change. I'm hoping MW and TH win big.
 
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Sad news indeed as both authors have been with WotC for many years. Looks like WotC was in breach of the contract for abandoning the book deal with both authors.
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, creators of the Dragonlance fantasy mythos, are suing Wizards of the Coast after the company ditched a licensing deal for the latest books in the long-running series.

Filed in district court in Seattle, the lawsuit [Scribd, PDF] was first reported by Cecilia D'Anastasio. The lawsuit claims that WoTC breached their contract without explanation and in "stunning and brazen bad faith", despite having been intimately involved in the development of the new work, approving a trilogy's worth of characters, storylines and scenes and signing with a publisher, Penguin Random House.

The lawsuit claims $10m in damages.

…at nearly the exact point in time of the termination, Defendant was embroiled in a series of embarrassing public disputes whereby its non-Dragonlance publications were excoriated for racism and sexism. Moreover, the company itself was vilified by well-publicized allegations of misogyny and racist hiring and employment practices by and with respect to artists and employees unrelated to Dragonlance. Plaintiff-Creators are informed and believe, and based thereon allege, that a decision was made jointly by Defendant and its parent company, Hasbro, Inc., to deflect any possible criticism or further public outcry regarding Defendant's other properties by effectively killing the Dragonlance deal…

It isn't made clear why this would lead to WoTC abandoning the new Dragonlance deal, but the lawsuit asserts that the allegations of racism and sexism faced by the company are "unrelated to the Dragonlance trilogy.
 
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I'm not overly invested into Dragonlance and related stuff, but the direction that WotC is taking is certainly not encouraging. Or surprising.
 
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Tracy Hickman knows all about abandoning contracts…..:lol:

Maybe if WOTC just deletes all references to the contract from the internet it'll be like it never happened.
 
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And this is why I personally believe that ANY Author should NEVER EVER sell his or her IP !
 
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And this is why I personally believe that ANY Author should NEVER EVER sell his or her IP !
Was it their IP to start with? I thought all those authors (salvatore, hickman, ...) were allowed to write in the worlds of wotc.
 
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They don't own it but made the IP popular with the novels. Though in recent years they keep getting attacked by people looking for something to start online wars.

It's hilarious as it's nothing but fantasy but…sigh people are just plain insane.:(

Edit: Here this explains the IP issue.
Wizards continued to publish Dragonlance novels throughout the '00s, but they opted not to release additional gaming books. Instead, they licensed those rights out to Weis's own company, Margaret Weis Productions (originally: Sovereign Press).
 
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First I've heard of this, and just wow, I'm a huge fan of these books, so I'll tend to side with the authors. I've not been a big fan of WoTC over the past years, and news like this will not endear them to me.
 
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