If you commission an artist on upwork for a $10 logo and your startup becomes a billion dollar company, you don’t owe that artist residuals.
The issue is that she agreed to a wage, not knowing whether it would be a hit or a flop. Plenty of movies are trash and make no money or lose money. She is not the one taking that risk if the movie failed. She would have gotten her agreed upon compensation either way.
If artists feel they aren’t getting compensated fairly, let them unionize/strike. Its fine if she wants to protest for future change, but she’s not entitled to anything extra on this specific film, just because it happened to do well. She could have leveraged the publicity to negotiate better terms next time, but now studios might see her as someone who complain loudly about a deal after its done.
If you commission an artist on upwork for a $10 logo and your startup becomes a billion dollar company, you don’t owe that artist residuals.
The issue is that she agreed to a wage, not knowing whether it would be a hit or a flop. Plenty of movies are trash and make no money or lose money. She is not the one taking that risk if the movie failed. She would have gotten her agreed upon compensation either way.
If artists feel they aren’t getting compensated fairly, let them unionize/strike. Its fine if she wants to protest for future change, but she’s not entitled to anything extra on this specific film, just because it happened to do well. She could have leveraged the publicity to negotiate better terms next time, but now studios might see her as someone who complain loudly about a deal after its done.