How is J.J. going to get paid?
A collection of media heavyweights (and middleweights) gathered at Brainstorm this morning to talk about entertainment in the Internet age, and not surprisingly, the discussion turned to protecting the rights -and bank accounts - of content creators. When a company like News Corp. or Disney takes a hit program and repackages it or repurposes it for an iPod or a cell phone, how do the creative types get theirs?

William Morris Agency CEO Jim Wiatt illustrated the problem thusly: Shortly after Disney CEO Bob Iger announced plans to make the television show "Lost" available for viewing on iPods, Wiatt called "Lost" creator J.J. Abrams (a William Morris client, natch) and asked if he had any idea the venture was in the works. Abrams said no, so Wiatt says he then called Iger and asked: "How is J.J. going to get paid?"

Iger, according to Wiatt, said, "I don't know." Wiatt paused and looked at former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who was sitting across the room and added: "If I had asked Michael he probably would have said: "He's not."
Posted by StephanieMehta 11:59 AM 0 Comments comment | Add a Comment

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.