Should Carnival have to pay royalties to passengers who get called up on stage during voyages?
USA Today reports that’s what one Carnival cruiser is demanding, according to the line's senior cruise director, John Heald.
In a recent post on his entertaining and widely followed blog, Heald says a passenger he identifies as "Mr. Cloonpitt" is insisting on royalties after being called up on a ship stage during a welcome aboard show that later got played on cabin television.
Heald says the man was one of six passengers who volunteered to come up on stage with him during the welcome event, and at the time he "got into the whole spirit of the show, and all was well... however, the next morning he demanded to speak to me telling me that I must remove the show, which had been recorded and was playing on the cabin televisions."
Heald says the man claimed he was an actor and thus was due royalties if the show was not taken down from the TV - something that Heald eventually ordered done.
"He spent the rest of the cruise telling me I owed him money and that he would be contacting his agent which... I guess he did," says Heald, who says lawyers are now involved in the dispute.
"Now I have cleared all of the above with the Carnival lawyers, and they have no problem with me telling you about this because amongst other things Mr Cloonpitt volunteered to do the show, and there is a waiver thingy within the ticket policies," Heald writes on his blog. "However, I now have to write a formal report about this, and that's got me mad."
Heald says he’s fed up with litigious passengers. "I can only imagine how many ridiculous lawsuits are slapped against companies each and every day." One result, he says, is all of those “watch-your-step, swim-at-your-own-risk, coffee-is-hot signs that are plastered all over the ships."
