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Comment by preinheimer | Hacker News Reader

> I have absolutely no doubts a court would consider it impossible to transfer goods under consignment to a different entity free of the burden of the consignment contract.

Reminds me of the whole "disney must pay" debacle.

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Was that the incident where they stole an artists tiki design?

No, they came up with some legal theory in which they’d bought the assets of some company, including the company’s ownership of some art, but not obligations like paying royalties.

Oh yes, the incident with the star wars extended universe authors royalties. Disney is the worst.

That’s like when I got my shower sealed and then it started leaking within the warranty period. The company claimed that they were the new owners and had purchased the business but not the warranty obligations (!) and I’d have to find the original owner and try to make him honour the warranty. Which was complete BS, obviously, but it wasn’t worth taking to court. :/

A letter from a lawyer or small claims court might be worth it though. It’s not going to take that much of your time, or cost very much.

There actually are legal ways to do that… instead of buying the company, you start a new company, and just buy assets of the old company (e.g. phone numbers, web sites, trademarks, customer lists). Seems shady but apparently it’s pretty common.

Doesn't always work. I think J&J tried that with talc powder liability.

Common doesn’t mean not shady. In Australia there are measures in place (eg. national registry for company directors, personal liability for directors) to combat this kind of ‘phoenixing’.

Perhaps:

“Authors Have Formed a Task Force Because Disney Refuses to Pay Them”

https://bookriot.com/disney-must-pay-task-force/

> Authors like Neil Gaiman have formed a task force to fight for the royalties Disney has refused to pay for Star Wars and other tie-in novels.

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