Monday, October 31, 2011

Shocked

Why would a judge question the veracity and wide-eyed innocence of cartoon studios?!

... U.S. District Court Judge Lucy H. Koh issued a case management order in the class action litigation charging that Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corporation, Intuit Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd., and Pixar violated antitrust laws by conspiring to suppress compensation for their employees.

In the order, Judge Koh denied defendants' motion to stay discovery in part. ...

It's like my dear old grannie used to say: "We live in a fallen world!" (And thanks to VFX Soldier for bringing this to our attention.)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Waiting for the commenter who will read this and tell the animators here that they need to stop whining, that capitalism is great, that we should be glad to have any jobs, and that if our skills were better and we worked harder then none of this would happen.

We all know these companies will get a slap on the wrist. But catch an employee stealing from one of these companies, and see what happens.

Anonymous said...

Proud "Teabagger" here - and those companies got what they deserved. Capitalism is not founded on the premise of abusing workers (you'd have to look at real-life, not theoretical, communism and socialism for examples of that). I'm glad to see our justice system acted in this case. And I hope the abused employees get compensation from John L. and co. for trying to act like Chinese overlords.

Anonymous said...

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-producers-death-254263

An article that gives insight as to how lowly the Producer is looked at by the Studios, and in turn, the Producer solicits high-end VFX from the lowest of bidders. Can it get any worse.....

Anonymous said...

"Capitalism is not founded on the premise of abusing workers..."

Who cares what capitalism is or is not. The Industrial Revolution born out of England was (is) just another way of exploiting the impoverished. It just happens to work very well - basically, you either work in the factory or you starve to death. It's what China is in the throes of. There is no difference between any of these systems, communist or otherwise. They all employ capitalist techniques to keep people working. Although, for the first time in human history, technology is actually failing to innovate fast enough to keep people employed. That is where 'capitalism' or whatever the hell you want to call it is unraveling.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Someone is "proud" to be a tea bagger. There's a rarity. And quite the embarrassment...sound and fury about something signifying absolutely nothing. What a shame they can't decide what they're about. And what a shame they're not a real grassroots movement--but bought and paid for by the far fringe right and the koch brothers.

Anonymous said...

Interesting to note the article talks primarily about software engineers, and not about the artists and animators which more than likely suffer the same fate.

Anonymous said...

The laptop you write on and the clothes you are wearing are a product of capitalism, free people cooperating to make things. What we have now is not capitalism is a rig game between corporations, big money , big goverment mixed with corruption we never are going to have an utopia, live is always going to be unfair but if you try to make it artificially fair we may end up like greece with 45% of the people working for the goverment. Looks great but someone has to pay for it. Let the people make things, keep what they earn and they freely will get togueter to help people... a goverment safety nest would not hurt either. why you guys get off insulting tea baggers or obamaniacs. we are all americans

Anonymous said...

If you don't understand that conservatism opposes anti-trust laws and trade unionism, you don't understand conservatism.

Anonymous said...

You guys do know that a "Teabagger" is someone who lowers their balls down onto somebody else's eyes, right?

And you're proud about this why?

Next we'll be hearing about the "Roman Soldier Helmet" party.

Anonymous said...

^Yes, and during the Revolutionary War, the British called the rebels "Yankee Doodles". And the rebels (having a sense of humor) proudly adopted it and even wrote a marching song about it. Later George M. Cohan wrote a song about it too - "Yankee Doodle Dandy".

We Teabaggers don't care what people who stereotype and sneer at us call us. As the above paragraph illustrates, we're in better company than they are.

Anonymous said...

Never ceases to amaze how anonymous post poses as someone they are not. This guy is playing you left wing anonymous, he is not a conservative. Probably a youtube kid in his parents basement.

el diablo said...

I was reffering to the proud teabagger....

Anonymous said...

One big problem with coming forward with information about salary collusion between companies is their respective non-disclosure agreements.

It may well be illegal, but if it is part of your job in HR or as a Producer to artificially cap salary wages, then revealing that would violate your NDA, as you are revealing company practices.

Once you've done that, the legal depts. at the various companies will come after you.

Rather a Catch-22 type of situation for the employee, but a brilliant move by the companies.

Anonymous said...

The above comment is nonsense. NDA's do not and cannot cover illegal behavior.

vfxsoldier said...

A covenant to protect from illegal practice is invalid.

Anonymous said...

To the anon at 8:49...
There is a difference in fighting for freedom and fight for things to be free.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget that one of our large(est?) signatory studios was also engaging in exactly the same anti-trust activity that Pixar and Lucasfilms were convicted of, but has never been charged.

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