According to accounts on the science fiction site File 770, Disney is failing to pay royalties it owes Alan Dean Foster for tie-in novels.

Some time ago, Alan Dean Foster noticed that he no longer received either royalties or royalty statements for the novelization of the first Star Wars movie, the Star Wars tie-in novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye as well as the novelizations of Alien, Aliens and Alien 3.
 
Alan Dean Foster contacted his agent Vaughne Hansen, who contacted the current publishers of the novels in question. It turned out that the problem was not with the publishers, but with Disney.
 
When Disney’s legal department kept stonewalling Vaughne Hansen, Alan Dean Foster contacted the SFWA grievance committee, who had no more luck getting a response from Disney. According to Alan Dean Foster, his agent and SFWA have been trying to talk to Disney without success for over a year now. So the matter was escalated to SFWA president Mary Robinette Kowal, who decided to take the unprecedented step to go public with the issue.

There may be other facts I don’t know of, but a company can’t simply acquire publication rights to a novel and keep selling it without taking on the royalty obligations. Disney isn’t exactly short on money. It could be an internal screw-up or someone’s attempt to improve the bottom line by ignoring legitimate obligations.

I once had a copy of the Star Wars novelization. George Lucas’ name appeared as the author. Foster ghostwrote it. But I assume the writing contract has Foster’s name on it.

I’m already unimpressed by Disney after it thanked China’s maintainers of its Savage Reservations — I mean “re-education camps” — for its assistance with the filming of Mulan.