hotsauceman1 wrote:Ok, for the sake of this discussion, Lets say "Mass Effect 3" and "How I met your Mother" as art.
The answer is no. The company owns the IP, which the artist developed as their employee. If they made something on their own time unrelated to their employer, then yes they own it, but whoever made the cover art for ME3 doesn't own that cover art. EA owns it. Likewise, though the creators of a show often have a lot of pull with said show, they do not own the show, the company financing it does.
Or lets look at the Game of thrones. Books are Great as is the show. But Martin is being pressured to write faster and get the next book out.
Well as an author I appreciate that his task is a hefty one, especially with how big his books are. Few authors can pull such a thing off. That said... It really shouldn't take this long to produce books. Longer series' have been written in less time.
Imagine how that would go over on the show. So he may be pressured by show staff to not do that because the show might loose audience for it.
In this case, while Game of Throne as an IP belongs to Martin, the TV series itself, belongs to HBO who pays Martin to use his IP. Martin can't tell them to do something, they can't tell him to do something. If they don't like what he does they can just ignore him (at this rate they may have to create their own ending).
EDIT: However! Something really cool they could do is make some prequel seasons for the series! Martin gives some details about the events of Robert's Rebellion, but it would be pretty epic to see HBO take a shot are their own version maybe consulting with Martin on the side about how to do it while creating their own little piece of the GoT universe. Or maybe a series about the Dance of Dragons or the Conquests of Aegon I. Or Ned Stark putting down the Iron Islands (who doesn't want more Ned Stark?). There's room in that universe for HBO to do some cool things on their own.