Out of control!

OWN is a network and networks broadcast. Sounds like ABC needs to pull out the checkbook and pay up. Happy to see someone light a little fire under them and stand up for themselves! Too bad ABC can’t be sued for bad decision-making, as in the decision to axe a couple of great soaps. They’d be bankrupt if that could be done…

I remember seeing the name Sam Hall in the closing credits. THIRTY FREAKING YEARS AGO!!!!! What is wrong with some people that they would rather sue than work for a living???

gees… perhaps all of OLTL fans could sue ABC for breaking our hearts and cancelling our beloved show…

just as absurd !

I hope everyone sues ABC. In fact maybe all the fans of AMC and OLTL could have a class action lawsuit based on our pain and suffering! Maybe we could all get disability. I know I have suffered and am not able to cope with life as well as I used to! As always, boo to all things ABCDISNEY!

I dont think he’ll win…technically speaking Prospect Park was now responsible for airing the show on OWN not ABC regardless if ABC still owned the series, so Sam Hall it seems could only sue if ABC was airing the show which they are not so it seems the contract would no longer be valid unless it includes another co. airing the show on a network other than ABC…i know nothing about these things so my comments probably dont matter…Sam Hall used to write for another soap Dark Shadows and his late wife Grayson Hall appeared on it as Dr. Julia Hoffman who attempted to cure Barnabas Collins of his vampirisim and fell in love with him…she also played other characters on the show during various time travels storylines and also appeared on OLTL with Nancy Barret and the late Anthony George who also appeared with her on Dark Shadows!

This royalty stuff is nonsense. You do a job, you get paid for it. Why should you continue to be paid for that work years later?

Lawsuits are a bane to our existence,

Yet another frivolous reason to keep OLTL off the air.

30 years – come on….but are there other deals like this ?

maybe this is why ABC shut down their soaps, because of bad deals made in the eighties.

Bring back OLTL!

$1,000 dollars a week. That is the reason why we don’t see Soaps repeated on the Subchannels like ME TV . The cost for the Royalities for music and writers, and actors etc which is much higher for a Broadcast Network then it is for Cable. Plus the fact that Drama’s especially serialized ones don’t repeat that well.

ABC obviously didn’t read the fine print in their own contacts with Mr. Hall and with Prospect Park! This could set a big precedent in regards to online materials and royalties from such programming. I read somewhere that some soap writers will get residuals for years to come as long as characters they created stay on the show. That’s one reason why when a soap changes writers, some writers are more than happy to get rid of some old characters and add some of their own. Considering that Mr. Hall was the head writer at OLTL in its most popular era (mid 70s- mid-80s), he was responsible for a great deal of long-running characters and stories on the show. He created the Buchanans, Tina, Renee, Cassie and others that stayed on for years. It seems like ABC gave him carte blanche with that 1984 contract, and the fact that he got money for years afterwards seems to be in his favor. ABC leased the show (along with characters created by Sam Hall like Clint and Bo Buchanan) to Prospect Park, and he may just have a case against ABC. It reminds me of when Walt Disney signed Peggy Lee to write and records songs for “Lady & the Tramp” in the 1950s. There was a clause in the contract guaranteeing Ms. Lee royalties for all future transcriptions. When the film made it to home video in the 1980s, she sued Disney for royalties, as she argued that the home videos were transcriptions under her 1954 deal. She wound up winning over $2 million in court from Disney! And now that Disney owns ABC, it’s deja vu all over again, only this time it’s a writer regarding one of their shows!

When I think of royalties I think of someone getting paid for their past creative work. Usually residuals/royalties are for the rebroadcast of their show (syndication) – regardless of what network/channel carried it. So as a writer of a soap, when you stop working for that soap – it does not get rebroadcast again (usually) and there would be no royalties. IF it were for characters said writer created ‘as long as they were on the canvas’, then I understand it.
If that truly is the case, then it looks like abc/d may have to pay up.

I’m sure someone will point out that when the contract was made in 1984 – that broadcast meant TV or radio. There was no video on the web, and OWN station isn’t ABC nor did ABC allow OWN to play these new web shows on the OWN station… that would be Prospect.

as far as what someone’s contract said about royalities, wouldn’t all other writers have had similar statements in their contracts as well?

ABC-TV made the worst decision in television History when they cancelled the beloved ALL MY CHILDREN as well as OLTL ~ whatever bad Karma comes their way now is much deserved.
Although I wasn’t overly thrilled with the shows as “On-line” inceptions, I was grateful to see some of the characters and some familiar faces again. Now, who knows if these shows will ever see the light of day again ~ seems doubtful, but one never knows….if the Execs at ABC had half a brain they would combine both shows…

The Hall deal was with ABC and any new deal would be with PP. Most royalty contracts are when the characters the head writer creates is still on the show. He Created Clint and Bo, so it makes since that he has the deal. OWN probly just paid flat licence fee to re-broadcast.

The only way that he might get any more money is because Soapnet I think was carrying reruns of One Life to Live until that station went off the air.

ABC pay MR.Hall his money