Bill Nye sues Disney for $9.35 million in missing Science Guy profits

[sandensea]

Source: Fortune

TV personality and climate activist Bill Nye on Thursday filed a suit Thursday claiming that the Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries improperly claimed more than $37 million in revenue generated by "Bill Nye the Science Guy," a children’s science show that aired on PBS from 1993 to 1998.

According to the suit, Nye and his producers signed a distribution deal with Buena Vista Television, a Disney subsidiary, in 1993, entitling the show’s creators to 50% of net profits from the show.

In 2008, Buena Vista issued Nye a check for $585,123 for his share of that year’s profits. But within months, Buena Vista, claiming it had made an accounting error, demanded most of that payment be returned.

In the course of the ensuing dispute, Nye’s team discovered that Buena Vista had made huge and "suspicious" expense deductions against the show’s $26 million in gross revenue, vastly reducing profits owed to Nye.

Read more: http://fortune.com/2017/08/25/bill-nye-sues-disney-missing-profits/

[monmouth4]

1. This does not surprise. Disney has the rep for being very frugal and slow on paying bills..n/t

[sandensea]

3. And quick to concoct massive "deductions" whenever convenient.

[PatSeg]

5. They have a terrible reputation

I've boycotted Disney for years. Not really family-friendly.

[csziggy]

8. Disney is not at all family friendly

My brother in law worked for them for decades. When he was finally diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer he was informed that if he stopped working to spend more time with his family he would immediately lose his health insurance as would his family. They did make one concession - he could work the same hours a week but in a shorter work week - he managed four days a week.

He dragged himself to work every week. He'd get his chemo treatments on Thursday evenings so he would feel better by Monday in order to be able to work. Finally he could not do it any more. The family arranged for hospice care, went out for a family meal, he get sick during that meal, and went home and died within days - less than a week after his last working day at Disney.

"Happiest place on Earth" my ass. I hated Disney well before that happened - I loved the ecosystem that existed there before they destroyed it and the development brought by Disney is completing the erasure of the pine-palmetto scrub lands. Even though I could have visited on a pass provided by my BIL, I refused to ever give them money. Now I fully detest Disney.

[PatSeg]

10. That is horrible

Sadly, I'm not terribly surprised though. I've heard so many awful stories about the company. I have never been to Disneyland or Disney World and you couldn't pay me to go. Nasty company.

[DK504]

2. Good for him. Disney messes with too many and gets away with

murder, literally. Hope he beats the snot out of them.

[mopinko]

4. they are very abusive of the concept of "intern"

my niece works for them. she had to do an unpaid internship to qualify for a paid job. i dont remember how long it was, but at least 6 mos, maybe a year.

my pet peeve.

[rickford66]

6. Never agree to a percent of net profits. Always a percent of gross.

Shrewd accounting usually leaves very little net profits. Movie stars learn this.

[Cal Carpenter]

9. Yep. The same is true in book contracts.

If your royalties aren't based on the list price of the book then you probably have a shitty publisher. Even if the deductions leading to 'net' are spelled out, there are too many ways for them to screw the author/artist.

[dembotoz]

11. After the accountant big movies made no money...how????

[rickford66]

12. Generating numerous expenses to minimize profits.

Many artists are exploited this way. You just have to read the biographies of so many artists who were deceived by creative accounting.

[Neema]

7. They also screw over licensees. They would send us art that we were

required to use in our products. Then when we send the products for approval they'd reject the art THAT THEY SENT US and we would have to pay to have illustrators redo it. They didn't want to pay to have their changes made so they screwed us over.