Amazon.com Looking for Animated Content

[largento]

Amazon.com is expanding their Amazon Studios to include animated TV shows.

 

You submit a pilot script and a mini-bible. You can also upload video along with those.

 

At some point, if they go for it, they'll option it for $10,000. If the series goes into production, the creator gets $55,000 and 5% of any merchandising. (Well, sort of. You get 5% of what Amazon nets from merchandising, actual sales figures don't count. That means you get 5% of their percent, probably minus whatever their overhead is.) Presumably, if you do any actual work on the episodes, you'd be paid for that, as well. However, I don't see anything that guarantees you any work or even offers it up as a possibility.

 

At the point that they buy it, you are selling every right imaginable (including moral rights, ie attribution, integrity of the work, etc.)

 

Also, the payment price ($55K) includes the option price, so you aren't getting $65K in total, only $55K. You do seem to get a first broadcast amount depending on how it's presented. If it's on broadcast or cable, you get $5K for a 1-hour, $3.5K for a 30-minute or $2K for a 15-minute episode. That's only the first run, though, you don't get anything for reruns, syndication, home video, etc. If it's online, you get $4k for a 1-hour, $2.5K for a 30-minute or $1.5K for a 15-minute episode. If they make a full-length theatrical movie and distribute it, they pay a one-time fee of $100,000. It doesn't look like you get anything if that movie spawns a sequel. If it does become a movie and there's any movie licensing, they can reduce your 5% to as low as 2.5%. Presumably to make certain they don't have to pay you a cent.

 

And of course, you are signing away your right to sue them.

 

It sounds like a completely rotten deal to me.

[TheSpleen]

nice lookin' out

[Fuchur]

It may be relatively low percent of money, but now be reasonable:

50.000 or 100.000 (two years of a quite good income) is money. And since you are selling an idea that otherwise would very very likely never get produced (at least in that fashion), why not?

Sure if you could do everything yourself and you can go to the cinema, etc, it gives you much more(if it is an success which is far from common), but be reasonable: That that happens is more than unlikely.

 

Yes at first I don't like the conditions neighter, but if I think about it: It could be worse...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[largento]

Yeah, Gerald, but remember that $300 check that Jerry Seigel and Joe Schuster got for the rights to Superman seemed like a great deal to them, too. Both of them ended up penniless while Superman started making millions of dollars for National Periodicals almost immediately. When they complained that they weren't getting their fair share, they were both fired. Joe ended up legally blind and Jerry had to crawl back to be allowed to write for the Superman comics, but not allowed to put his name on them. By the 1970s, Jerry was working in a mail-room at a company, a broken man.

 

If your idea is good enough, why not try to go through the normal channels and end up with a fair deal where you don't have to give up your moral rights and potential future profit?

 

Look, if you don't care about the idea, I suppose why not toss it into the mix, but is that really going to be a good enough idea? And I guarantee you're going to care if it becomes something huge like Superman.

[Gerry]

Looks like they're only looking for kids shows and comedies.