‘Show me the money!’

Daniel Craig/James Bond character poster

Two separate events created a furor and accusations of entertainment companies being cheap.

One was the competition announced for No Time to Die poster artwork.

Under terms of the contest, all entries become the property of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, James Bond’s home studio.

Five winners will receive 2,000 British pounds ($2,665). Another 20 pieces of artwork will be designated as finalists and receive 250 pounds ($333.12) each.

The tweet announcing the contest asked: “Are you a budding artist or illustrator? Here’s your chance to design poster artwork inspired by Daniel Craig’s Bond film.”

Twitter, though, can be an unforgiving place at times. While some Bond fans indicated their approval, many artists typed replies that included some pretty harsh comments (i.e, swear words), essentially saying artists should get paid and terms of the contest are onerous.

Examples (without swear words) include THIS TWEET, THIS TWEET, and THIS TWEET.

CLICK HERE and you can scroll down and see the replies for yourself.

The other situation, mostly unrelated except for the money angle, concerns Discovery Networks, which wants to eliminate royalty payments to composers.

Here’s an excerpt from a story by Variety.

Discovery has informed many of its top composers that, beginning in 2020, they must give up all performance royalties paid for U.S. airings, and that they must sign away their ability to collect royalties on all past shows on its networks.

Eliminating royalties will reduce composer income by 80 percent to 90 percent for those shows, Variety said. According to the report, composers don’t get paid that much up front. Discovery includes the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, HGTV and Food Network.

Professional composers took to Twitter to express their disapproval.

Discovery Networks Corners Composers in Music Royalties Battle

Hey ⁦@Discovery⁩ – get your shit together – you’re already paying these guys a low wage and now you want the one thing that keeps them and their family afloat?

I’m done with you.
https://t.co/EIdkCbwm4p

— Michael Giacchino (@m_giacchino) December 13, 2019

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I’m saying it. Michael is saying it. Every composer is saying it. @Discovery have said they DO NOT CARE about music and the craft that goes into it.. they just need some noise for their pictures. Small time thinking in a world with so much content you need quality to cut through. https://t.co/QXhcbzuoIr

— Daniel Pemberton (@DANIELPEMBERTON) December 14, 2019

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