Walt Disney Music Co.

[tmhuud]

Just wanted to run this past any working composers here before I contact my attorney and or music manager/agency.

Recieved in the mail yesterday a 'packette' from The Walt Disney Music company. It is a letter stating that the Miramax films I have scored are films that are now owned by Disney. (now to my knowledge theyve owned these films for awhile now...)
The packette contains goodies in it like "withholding exemption certificates", W9 forms , 590 forms and direct deposit forms.

Has Anyone ELSE gotten these and does anyone know what they are? I have been collecting royaties on my Miramax films for quite some time now and dont really undersand how filing out these forms will impact the royalties.

I do have a call into Disney contracts dept and am waiting to hear back but any advice or knowledge from those that may have worked on similar films (once owned by Miramax, etc) and have also gotten this info and had it looked at by a professional (or not) or would be able to shed some light on this would be great!

Thanks!

[peter5992]

Hi Terry:

I haven't scored any films for Miramax so I cannot comment from personal experience but it is not unusual after a company is being acquired by another company to "merge" certain overhead functions, such as administration, finance, et cetera, with a view to overall cost reduction and efficiency. In this case it seems that the function of the royalties handling department formerly within Miramax, is now being transferred to Disney Music company, and to achieve that, Disney Music company needs you to fill out all the administrative and tax paperwork so they can probably withhold taxes (or get the appropriate exemptions for withholding taxes) and make sure that their treasury department pays you your royalties directly through a direct deposit form.

This really should not affect the amount of the royalties that you get, because those are determined by the contracts you signed at the time by Miramax, and neither Miramax nor Disney can unilaterally change those contracts.

I am just a simple corporate attorney, not an entertainment attorney, so I will defer to the experts ...

Hope this helps,

Peter

[A.Leung]

Thanks for responding Peter. The thing we couldnt figure out is that the Libraries had been aquired since 2005. So to just NOW get the letter...well... Big corporations can run a bit slow.

We contacted Disney and now we at least know how to proceed.

As far as direct deposit the Disney contract dept said only 1 out of 10 artists ever signs up for it. (cash in hand still seems more 'valuable' than cash in bank? :/

Cheers,

[peter5992]

Yes, big corporations can be slow sometimes - many layers of management, each having their own responsibility, and so on. On the other hand, big corporation and their legal and business departments oftentimes have to handle many projects at the same time - in a larger way they are no different from you or me - and perhaps other projects had a higher priority. (Maybe the integration of Pixar? I don't know.)

That is weird, about the direct deposit -- you know, coming from Europe, direct deposit is pretty much the only way people do business there - sending cash raises eyebrows, since it reeks of tax evasion and no respectable company wants to have anything to do with that.

[A.Leung]

Disney said they 'prefer' direct deposit.

But everyone else seems to prefer something else. :)

[Dannthr]

Direct Deposit is rad.

Just don't do it with a company you can't trust, especially out of country companies.

[johng]

Hi Terry,

My contracts / paperwork with Disney were always about 3 times thicker (number of pages) than for any other studio. My guess is that, now that Disney is running Miramax more like a wholly-controlled (not just wholly-owned) subsidiary, some of what Disney might regard as "freewheeling" days are over.

Put differently, I would speculate that Disney are just bringing into line with their standard policies the old contracts that artist previously had signed with Miramax while it was run by the Weinsteins.

I suppose it's possible that there could be something that would be to your detriment in them -- US companies will ask that you sign away your "moral rights" to your art work, for example, but Miramax might not have because they had so many European artists -- so you'd of course have to wade through them to be sure.