@kristofgriffin384

3 years ago

Generally speaking and with very rare exceptions, in order to get your cartoon on a network like Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, or Disney, you need to give up your copyright to it. For example, Alex Hirsch, the creator of "Gravity Falls" needs to ask permission to take creative liberty with his own show, that he created. Even sketching out images of Gruncle Stan without asking Disney for permission could get him sued for copyright infringement. This is why Cartoon Network can give "The Powerpuff Girls" and the "Teen Titans" to whomever they like. Or when Nickelodeon announced that they'll make a CGI spin-off of Spongebob, even though Stephen Hillenburg directly said that he didn't want Spongebob to have any spin-offs. They literally waited for him to die so they could ignore his wishes and rape his creation however they want. Usually, this is a trade-off to getting the pilot off in the first place. Copyright control in the animation industry is used as a bludgeon and it's scary how very few people outside the industry seem to have a problem with this - despite the fact that it is a very, very bad problem. This isn't a recent issue either. This has been going on since the '90s. It boils down to this: If you don't do what the network wants, they will kick you off your own show and give it to somebody else. Even if you do end up doing as they say, if you get too much respect to kick around like Craig McCracken, they'll end up giving your property to some schmuck who's much easier to control and do EXACTLY as the network wants. This problem also extends to animated movies. The movie "Sausage Party" was filled to the brim with controversy, even though it's the very first R-rated CGI animated film, most of the controversy wasn't from its content, but how its animators were treated. They were told to work overtime for free. They were threatened with termination for not hitting deadlines. And in the end-credits, half of the animators' staff wasn't even credited. This is the standard that many, many animation productions have. A lot of animators are forced to work under these conditions because if they don't work for a minuscule amount of money, the company will outsource the production to South Korea. This is the reason why so many western cartoons nowadays like "Steven Universe" are animated in South Korea. The bottom ten percent of American animators get paid 38 thousand dollars, per year. The median animator in South Korea gets 21,600 USD per year. That's a cost reduction of 40% per person, in the production of hundreds if not thousands of people. It basically boils down to: "if you don't do your job for the price we tell you, we will find someone to replace you". In some cases, they will make it so everyone will turn on you by creating false allegations. Or, you'll be blacklisted for saying the slightest thing wrong about a certain person or network. This is why it's so hard to find cartoonists who complain about a network. Most of the money that's made from a cartoon is from merchandising because the creators usually don't get royalties for this. The only one that benefits from merchandising is the network. Even if you buy the toys or DVD for a show that you like, it's up to the studio whether or not they'll pay the animators.

229 |