Has the writer posted the text of the contract somewhere? Is the text of the contract under NDA? I am asking because media companies (film, music, anything really) screwing over artists in contracts is fairly commonplace. Them ignoring contracts altogether and just doing whatever is not something I had heard of before. In the absence of other information, I lean towards believing they had snuck a term into the artist's contract allowing them to do what they have done here, because that's their MO. If you think that makes me an idiot, so be it.