Sapkowski demands CDPR pay him more

[PrettyDeadman]

If not for the games, no one would have even heard of him outside of Poland.

Not true. In russia, his popularity rivaled Tolkien's from late 90s onwards.

I read witcher saga at leasat 6 times before reading Lord of The Rings (and I barely finished that).
All of this was long before witcher 1 was anounced.

 

[conan_edw]

Actually, he does not have a case because the company can show that they *did* offer him a deal several times which he refused. He is blackmailing CDPR and he knows it. The thing is that CDPR will *most probably* agree with him and settle for a smaller sum, if only not to have a negative media image.

Just because someone "offered a deal" does not mean it was fair and does not mean that he had to accept it. If i visit your house, steal it from you by throwing you out through force, then offer you 10 dollar compensation to settle a deal for your house, does that make it a fair deal? Will I go to court to defend myself saying "well i did offer him 10$ dollar deal several times, he just refused". Would that fly?

Having offered a deal in the past is not a valid defence. He may refused because the deal was low, or because he wanted to appraise how much the deal would be worth before comitting. There is nothing wrong on Sapkwoski's part. You are just fangirling in favour of CDPR a little too much.

“I was stupid enough to sell them rights to the whole bunch… They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said ‘No, there will be no profit at all - give me all my money right now!’"

What is he saying is suggesting otherwise

 

[Delterius]

You do realize he already was big in countries like Czech Republic, Russia, Ukraine before the games right?

So....

irrelevant?

 

[Tacgnol]

Seems like Sapkowski is butthurt he didn't take the royalty agreement.

Cranky old polish alcoholic doesn't believe in newfangled vidya games.

 

[Dayyālu]

Not true. In russia, his popularity rivaled Tolkien's from late 90s onwards.

Slavs cannot into fantasy?

I mean, I've read (and appreciated) Slav science fiction, it's legit good. If someone told me that Sapkowski is supposed to be "huge" or something I would have expressed disbelief, having read it both in the English and my native tongue, translated. Sapkowski is.... well, dreadfully bad compared to pretty much every fantasy author I've ever read, we're reaching YA novel levels or Alt-history shlock. I mean, The Last Ringbearer is russian absurdity at its finest and it's still miles better than the barely coherent derivative stuff Sapkowski threw out.

Stanisław Lem sure he ain't.

He doesn't deserve a dime for the work the games did, their writing is at least adequate. And if someone had to start to ask money from Sapkowski for the ideas he stole pretty much nothing would be left, from his protagonist ( a badly mangled Elric expy) to his borderline moronic plots stolen from fairy tales.

 

[Tytus]

So....

irrelevant?

When CD Projekt RED approached Sapkowski, they were a company who had absolutely no experience in making games. At that time there was already a one failed attempt of making Witcher game, and absolute catastrophe of TV series. No wonder he was sceptical of their success. Yet they produced an outstanding game: but still, they were small company, with no experience, no brand to speak of. Their officials claimed they need to sell one million copies of the game to just get even ("Musimy sprzedać milion egzemplarzy, żeby inwestycja w stworzenie gry się zwróciła" source).

What they get was immense free publicity in Poland. Everyone was excited. People were talking about it. I was talking about it, despite not being a gamer (well, I did play games, but I was no more a gamer than someone who plays solitaire). I was talking about it to my foreign friends. There were articles in popular press. Simply put, CPR get a free marketing campaign in Poland, worth millions. The result: the game was I think the highest ever selling game in Poland ("W Polsce utrzymuje się na pierwszym miejscu najlepiej sprzedających się gier. Choć od premiery minęły zaledwie trzy tygodnie, już udało się pobić rekord wszech czasów: 67 tys. sprzedanych egzemplarzy. Najwyraźniej magia mistrza Sapkowskiego działa."source). By 19.02.2008 the game sold 140.000 items in Poland, compared to 600.000 copies abroad (source) - and the numbers abroad include items sold in Eastern Europe, when Sapkowski also was known and liked. They achieve one million sold copies by November 2008 (source). However, they still had to get a loan to finance theirprojects (25 mln PLN source). By 2013, they sold 5 millions copies total of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 (of which 2.1 million copies of Witcher 1) (source), 6 millions by the end of 2013 (source), 8 millions by september 2014 (source) and 25 millions by March 2017 (source).

For comparison, by 2008 Sapkowski sold 1.3 million to 2 million copies in Poland alone (source : "Jako ciekawostkę dodam, iż sprzedaż książek Sapkowskiego z Wiedźmińskiego cyklu, w samej Polsce, przekroczyła 2 mln egzemplarzy!", here 1,3 millions by 2005: "Od momentu debiutu autora do połowy 2005 roku książki Andrzeja Sapkowskiego rozeszły się w liczbie blisko 1,3 mln egz." source.

The books were translated into Czech (1992), Russian (1996), Lithuania (1997), German (1998), Spanish(2003) when he even got an influential Award Ignotus Award in 2003, French (2003), Portuguese (2005). One unverified source claims he got 5 millions copies sold in Eastern Europe alone by 2005 (not verified source)

If you mean that selling 3mln copies of the book in those markets - a 1mln more than in Poland is irrelevant than I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Tytus]

The guy from CDPR claims that after the game success, he was helping Sapkowski reaching new translators for his books. The relevant fragment, translation mine:

By the premiere of W1 one short story collection in English was published and no one was even interested in publishing the second one. Only later everything get on pace and new offers started to appear. I speak that from the perspective of a guy who (as a worker of CDPR, addition from the editor) helped Sapkowski's agent contacting people interested in book which at that time were voicing their interest to us as RED. So mr. Andrzej might be saying his stuff (Polish idiom here: wie swoje), but I will not agree with that. Without the games there would not be 1/100 of world's sales of this book and sooner or later the author should realise that, and not protest (Polish idiom here: stawać okoniem) at every occasion

http://polygamia.pl/andrzej-sapkowski-nadal-nie-rozumie-ile-zawdziecza-cd-projekt-red/

And there's also a fact that CDPR helped his agent to get Sapkowski's book to new markets.
And while I think that 1/100 thing is just a hyperbole - because he sold a lot of copies before the games - but he did profit from the games quite substantially. And if he goes to court all of this will probably used against his case.

 

[Farewell into the night]

I hope the devs of the Black Geyser will make him a greedy NPC.

 

[Berekän]

Not true. In russia, his popularity rivaled Tolkien's from late 90s onwards.

Slavs cannot into fantasy?

I mean, I've read (and appreciated) Slav science fiction, it's legit good. If someone told me that Sapkowski is supposed to be "huge" or something I would have expressed disbelief, having read it both in the English and my native tongue, translated. Sapkowski is.... well, dreadfully bad compared to pretty much every fantasy author I've ever read, we're reaching YA novel levels or Alt-history shlock. I mean, The Last Ringbearer is russian absurdity at its finest and it's still miles better than the barely coherent derivative stuff Sapkowski threw out.

Stanisław Lem sure he ain't.

He doesn't deserve a dime for the work the games did, their writing is at least adequate. And if someone had to start to ask money from Sapkowski for the ideas he stole pretty much nothing would be left, from his protagonist ( a badly mangled Elric expy) to his borderline moronic plots stolen from fairy tales.

Don't know about the italian translation but the english one is infamously terrible. Apparently the one that I read, the spanish one, is pretty good and I didn't have any problems with the writing whatsoever.

 

[Tytus]

As as I know Sapkowski himself considers the Czech translation as the best translation of his work. He also uses the map that was drawn for the Czech edition as the most faithful to what he envisioned. At least that's what he said in one interview.

 

[Tytus]

1) Indeed he is profiting in other areas. This doesn't exclude him from taking a share of the profits from the games... This is a very weak argument, it is like saying that Tolkien's family should NOT receive a share of the profits from the Lord of the rings and hobbit trilogies because their books saw increased sales... This is utterly moronic.

The whole case hinges on this article of polish law:

Art. 44. Gross disproportion between the remuneration of the creator and the benefits of the buyer of the author's economic rights or the licensee: "In the case of a gross disproportion between the remuneration of the creator and the benefits of the buyer of the author's economic rights or the licensee, the creator may demand an appropriate increase in remuneration by the court."

Remuneration is considered the pay or other compensation provided in exchange for the services performed; not to be confused with giving (away), or donating, or the act of providing to.[1] A number of complementary benefits, however, are increasingly popular remuneration mechanisms.[citation needed] Remuneration is one component of reward management.

So if CDPR can prove that thanks to them (helping his agent for example) Sapkowski revenue stream increased substantially that it will be harder for the author to get the money he wants. (But I could be dead wrong about this)

He might have a lot stronger case with the license sold for only one game angle, though.

 

[J_C]

In the end, CDPR WILL have to pay up, how much, we are going to see in the future.

CDPR has a legitimate contract for this IP, so they will only pay up if they took mercy on the old drunk and throw him some pity money. Seeing how scummy Sapkowsky had behaved towards CDPR and the Witcher videogame franchise, I hope he doesn't get a penny.

He might have a lot stronger case with the license sold for only one game angle, though.

If that would be true, then CDPR didn't have a chance. But it is hard to believe that they were running this franchise for 10 years now without having a proper IP contract for it.

 

[Delterius]

If you mean that selling 3mln copies of the book in those markets - a 1mln more than in poland is irrelevant than I don't know what to tell you.

yes

 

[Bocian]

It's funny because without CDPR this franchise would be relatively worthless compared to today.

Without his work CDPR would never get this big, it would probably share the same fate as most other Polish developers, who never gained recognition and ultimately crashed.

 

[Bester]

I hope he doesn't get a penny.

I'm amazed you're such an asshole J_C.

I have a complicated relationship with revshares, but I wish Sapkowski good luck, I hope he gets 2.5-5%. That's fair. He's not a shrewd businessman, but he deserves it.

 

[mondblut]

Not true. In russia, his popularity rivaled Tolkien's from late 90s onwards.

Slavs cannot into fantasy?

I mean, I've read (and appreciated) Slav science fiction, it's legit good. If someone told me that Sapkowski is supposed to be "huge" or something I would have expressed disbelief, having read it both in the English and my native tongue, translated. Sapkowski is.... well, dreadfully bad compared to pretty much every fantasy author I've ever read, we're reaching YA novel levels or Alt-history shlock. I mean, The Last Ringbearer is russian absurdity at its finest and it's still miles better than the barely coherent derivative stuff Sapkowski threw out.

russian translation had a benefit of immensely talented translator, the late Evgeny Weisbrot. He translated Lem as well, so I guess they ended up the same

The last ringbearer is pretty good, while 99% of russian sf&f is mindblowingly abysmal. At least Geralt isn't magically transported to 1939 to kill Hitler and prevent WW2

 

[Bester]

At least Geralt isn't magically transported to 1939 to kill Hitler and prevent WW2

I'm sure there's a book somewhere on the shelves in Russia about exactly that.

Shit, if there are books about Stalin getting sucked into the Might & Magic universe, there are no limits.

 

[Raghar]

Well, i know most fangirls of Witcher 3 will attack Sapkowski for this move, but he does have a point. Witcher universe is after all, his fucking work. CDPR barely created new lore of their own, most of the fucking characters in the games are from the books, they just wrote fanfiction on top of them. Getting only 10k dollars out of such a profitable property while it is your fucking universe is disgusting. In my opinion, CDPR should have approached him first for a proper deal, but we all know they are terribly greedy, especially seeing how they treat their employees...

You can argue till kingdom come how his work is overrated, wouldn't be known outside of Slavic countries if not for the games, yada yada, this doesn't make him any less right in wanting some compensation, a part of the profit from his own fucking work.

They offered him royalties. He said: no you'd bankrupt and I'd see nothing. Pay me EVERYTHING upfront.

Also they quote: "Licencje open source, creative commons i ruch open access". And something on "T. Targosz [in:] D. Flisak (ed)., Prawo autorskie i prawa pokrewne. Komentarz, Warsaw 2015, p. 685" I wasn't able to see online source, so does anyone actually know what exactly they are quoting?

 

[janior]

he got his money years ago and should gtfo

 

[Raghar]

You know stuff is just a bullshit, when you look at resetera, and the first post you see is "This feels like money grab."
When even posters on resetera sees it as obvious money grab... How deep Poland fallen.

 

[J_C]

I hope he doesn't get a penny.

I'm amazed you're such an asshole J_C.

I have a complicated relationship with revshares, but I wish Sapkowski good luck, I hope he gets 2.5-5%. That's fair. He's not a shrewd businessman, but he deserves it.

You have only seen the kind and forgiving J_C so far, so I totally understand that seeing Darth J_C is shocking.

Also, if Codexians can wish gamedev businesses to go broke, I can wish a bit malice to Sapkowski.

 

[a Goat]

Shit, if there are books about Stalin getting sucked into the Might & Magic universe, there are no limits.

Tell me someone wants ti translate it

 

[Ranarama]

Is there any legal standing for CDPR to sue for their share of the increased profits of his books from their game?

 

[Gerrard]

In the end, CDPR WILL have to pay up, how much, we are going to see in the future.

CDPR has a legitimate contract for this IP, so they will only pay up if they took mercy on the old drunk and throw him some pity money. Seeing how scummy Sapkowsky had behaved towards CDPR and the Witcher videogame franchise, I hope he doesn't get a penny.

He might have a lot stronger case with the license sold for only one game angle, though.

If that would be true, then CDPR didn't have a chance. But it is hard to believe that they were running this franchise for 10 years now without having a proper IP contract for it.

It's not "hard to believe" in the least. What is hard to believe is that the contract gave them an indefinite reign over the IP.
Regardless if it did, it still falls under the above mentioned law about disproportionate benefits, so he does have a case.

 

[J_C]

In the end, CDPR WILL have to pay up, how much, we are going to see in the future.

CDPR has a legitimate contract for this IP, so they will only pay up if they took mercy on the old drunk and throw him some pity money. Seeing how scummy Sapkowsky had behaved towards CDPR and the Witcher videogame franchise, I hope he doesn't get a penny.

He might have a lot stronger case with the license sold for only one game angle, though.

If that would be true, then CDPR didn't have a chance. But it is hard to believe that they were running this franchise for 10 years now without having a proper IP contract for it.

It's not "hard to believe" in the least. What is hard to believe is that the contract gave them an indefinite reign over the IP.
Regardless if it did, it still falls under the above mentioned law about disproportionate benefits, so he does have a case.

They didn't get indefinite reign over the IP, but it is possible that they purchased the IP for a given period. Like how EA acquired the license to Star Wars for a given amount of years.