posted May 20, 2003 12:03 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by arromdee:
If that was true, DC wouldn't have had to buy Captain Marvel off of Fawcett--they'd already have all the rights.

It isn't true. If you make an unauthorized derivative work of copyrighted material, you aren't allowed to distribute it, but neither is the original copyright owner.

---

You're wrong -- Sec. 103(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976 states that copyright protection does not extend to those parts of an unauthorized derivative work which are based on copyrighted material. If Quality owned Phantom Lady when Iger took the character to Fox, then every new story and every change made to her character was an unauthorized derivative work and therefore unprotected by copyright; that is, it was public domain.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/103.html

As for Captain Marvel, you're right -- if Captain Marvel was an unauthorized derivative work of Superman, then DC didn't have to buy it, they could have just published their own version. However, the case between DC and Fawcett settled without a resolution of the central question.
http://www.toonopedia.com/capmarv1.htm

posted May 20, 2003 01:06 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cliffy Mark II:
...Sec. 103(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976 states that copyright protection does not extend to those parts of an unauthorized derivative work which are based on copyrighted material. If Quality owned Phantom Lady when Iger took the character to Fox, then every new story and every change made to her character was an unauthorized derivative work and therefore unprotected by copyright; that is, it was public domain....

---

Okay--if Phantom Lady was a piece of Quality Comics' property at the time Iger shopped it to Fox, then the Fox stories are public domain, and can be re-used by anyone without violating anyone's copyright.
But even so, anyone but DC marketing that material as Phantom Lady stories would still be violating Quality's (now DC's) trademark, yes?

posted May 20, 2003 02:04 PM            

James, I think you've got the right of it -- assuming that the Fox stories are public domain (which requires (1) Quality owned PL at the time Fox was publishing her, and (2) everything in those stories is based enough on PL that none of it is protected despite arromdee's point that there might be some matter there that isn't pervaded by the unauthorized matter), then there's no copyright protection on them whatsoever. But, since DC owns the trademark on PL, anyone publishing that public domain Fox material would be violating DC's trademark.

Again, this assumes that when the Einser-Iger studio sold their first Phantom Lady stories to Quality, they sold the rights in the character with it. Whether that's true or not is a question of fact the answer to which is probably lost for good in the mists of time.

posted May 20, 2003 02:42 PM               

THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS by Gerard Jones, Will Jacobs & Tim Hamilton was the real stand-out for me, first at Malibu, then at Eternity. (Were they really just the same company under 2 different imprints, then, and if so why?) This book was FUNNY AS HELL!!!!!

"Remove the phrases "balck & white" and "of that period" and the statement is still true of the majority of comics companies, I'd say."

posted May 20, 2003 02:50 PM               

This is making my head spin.

posted May 20, 2003 02:53 PM               

DC has never, to my knowledge, published a comic-book named PHANTOM LADY. So I'd say it's highly unlikely they've REGISTERED the trademark officially, other than using the TM" sign. If some other brave (or foolhardly, or simply well-FINANCED) publisher really wanted to publish a comic-book titled PHANTOM LADY and went about SECURING a trademark for it... well it would be interesting to see, wouldn't it.

posted May 20, 2003 03:06 PM               

Just as a guess, I'd say that the reason for both the proliferation of imprints (and secrecy about their interrelationships) and the secrecy about their real ownership was that, unlike Pacific Comics and Capital City, both distributors who had in the 1980s openly done some publishing (and produced, by and large, quality product), these imprints were a naked, cynical attempt to capitalize on the speculative frenzy surrounding the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and the continuing success of black & white titles such as Cerebus and Elfquest), and to do so with no effort to create good comics.

This was the period when some distributors, notably Diamond, were beginning to be more judicious about what made it into their catalogs. Others, like Comics Unlimited, were always quirky--even quixotic--in their behavior, and if they didn't like something, it was history as far as they were concerned.
Scott may have felt that openly exploiting the trend as seriously as he was doing might have caused one or more of his competitors to cease to carry his product.

posted May 20, 2003 03:22 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cliffy Mark II:
assuming that the Fox stories are public domain (which requires (1) Quality owned PL at the time Fox was publishing her, and (2) everything in those stories is based enough on PL that none of it is protected despite arromdee's point that there might be some matter there that isn't pervaded by the unauthorized matter), then there's no copyright protection on them whatsoever.

---