Our beloved characters and stories are being used as magic money-spinners by copyright trollies, who act as toll-collectors and gate-keepers to the public domain, ripping off creators who want to tell stories and audiences who’d enjoy them.
Not at all like Disney, I suppose?
Speaking of copyright trolls, the Conan Doyle estate is still shaking down movie studios (even after the Klinger suit):
please keep up with this story I really want to see how this goes…
ipso ergo factiod ; ergo sum incognititus ; aquatious subperbious !!! https://archive.org/details/DuckDodgersInThe24thCentury
The things I could tell you about Hermes Press and Mr Daniel Herman…your eyes would pop.
Feel free to contact me.
One of my favourite SF covers.
The painting is from a scene in the first Skylark novel By Edward E. Smith.
Though it is referred to as the Buck Rodgers cover.
Indeed.
he asked (as Klinger did with Holmes) for a declaration stating that since the character of Buck Rogers has his origins in the public domain novel, the character itself is therefore in the public domain and all trademarks for it should be voided
um, no? That was a copyright suit. Trademarks aren’t mentioned anywhere.
And even if they were, just because the character is PD does not mean that the trademarks are also invalid. That’s an entirely different part of IP law.
How do I contact you would like to know what you know.
Good we’re due for a new buck rogers.
Under most non-U.S. copyright laws based on the Berne Convention, a work is covered for a period of “life plus 50."
I haven’t done a count, but in very many countries – including the entire European Union – the term is “life plus 70 years”. I expect far better coverage of copyright issues from Boing Boing.
I’m disappointed that boingboing would run an “article” that’s obviously a bullying tactic by a Hollywood producer against a small publisher. The phony byline was clearly concocted for this occasion (“Rogers Anthony” writing about Anthony Rogers), the information is slanted and misleading, and the basic premise–that this producer is basing his movie on the “original novel” instead of the comic strip–is ridiculous to anyone who’s looked at that novel. And the glorification of the “heroic producer” (by one of the producer’s employees, no doubt) is fairly nauseating. Whatever the legal copyright issues actually are, this is a dishonest attempt by a Hollywood shark to intimidate a small publisher and rights-holder.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
