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The definitive copyright thread

Started by sheridan, 11 August, 2016, 10:05:29 PM

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sheridan

By the way - don't know if it got mentioned up-thread, but the Legends of the Law (originally published by DC) are copyright Rebellion, who are free to reprint them as they see fit.

sheridan

Quote from: Smith on 02 October, 2017, 10:50:03 AM
Maybe not the best place to ask,but anyway - Warrior.I know whats with Miracleman and V,but who owns the rest?Still Dez or did everything went to Image?

If you go in to a bookshop then the edition of V that you'll find is published by DC.  Current Miracleman reprints are published by Marvel (so I don't know why they don't publish it as Marvelman now that that isn't an issue).  I would presume that all the other content would be owned by its respective creators or their estates (Steves Moore, Parkhouse and Dillon, et al).

Richard

I read the first four issues of Legends of the Law. It's by Wagner and it's about Anderson as a cadet helping Dredd on a case. The script is brilliant and funny, and the story is entirely consistent with 2000AD continuity. It deserves a reprint in the floppy.


JOE SOAP

Quote from: John Pannozzi on 27 November, 2017, 01:37:09 AM
Quote from: Professor Bear on 25 September, 2017, 01:27:16 PM
Time UK up for sale.




Meredith is buying Time.


But Meredith may not have bought Time UK.

The current negotiations are believed to be for the entire portfolio, minus several divestitures that are already in the works (Sunset, Golf, Time Inc. U.K.), which has led to speculation that Meredith might decide to unload the newsweeklies after acquiring them. (Perhaps to the Kochs as a play thing?, some of my sources wondered.) Meredith would presumably be more keen on keeping Time Inc.'s resident cash cow, People, and perhaps Entertainment Weekly.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/time-inc-deal-meredith-koch-brothers

Professor Bear

Now finally someone will do something with the powerhouse IP that is Dan Dare.

CalHab

I'm continually amazed that people can muster enthusiasm for Dan Dare reboots. They must see something in the character that I don't.

Tjm86

Dare has always benefitted from some really quality ideas and some outstanding artwork.  By the same token, some of the stories that have been told over the years have really lacked focus and sold the character short, even some of the tooth and original Eagle material.  Tom Tully did not do the character any favours, either with the final tooth strip or some of the later Eagle stuff. 


sheridan

Quote from: John Pannozzi on 20 May, 2018, 04:12:06 PM
And now Epiris Fund II owns Time UK and the pre-1970 IPC properties.

One of these days an IP company will own all the pre70s IPC IP that actually does something with it (or at the least splits it off from whatever they've been buying all the other IP for and sell it to somebody who does reprint / develop it).

dstransmissions

Chanced upon this thread looking for some info on who owns Metalzoic (DC, thanks for that) and saw some other stuff come up where I might be able to help with some answers.  Nothing definitive of course (I'm not a copyright lawyer, thank god), but just some info I've come across from researching this stuff over the years.

Not going to get into conentious 2000AD strips (Summer Magic, Zenith) as that's been done to death elsewhere and ultimately an issue between Rebellion and the creator's involved.  Also, all the old IPC/Egmont 'pre-1970 plus characters from Buster' stuff has now been resolved with Rebellion buying it all I think?

The other stuff though...

* Licenced Dredd games/books/comics etc. - Standard practice across the industry - certainly today, most likely in the past as well - is that the licensor (in this case Rebellion, who would also retrospectively own anything licensed by IPC) owns the copyright on any licensed works, with the licensee's interest lasting only as long as the period agreed in the original contract between the two parties.  You can see that most clearly with Star Wars comics (and, more recently Conan) produced by Dark Horse.  They're ultimately owned by Lucasfilm/Disney, so now their licensing agreement with Dark Horse has expired, they're free to publish them wherever else they like (in this case, under the Marvel Comics banner). 

For a much more obscure example of this see the Grant Morrison/Ian Gibson Steed & Mrs Peel series, co-published by Atomeka and Eclipse (what a nightmare *that* would be to resolve if you had to untangle their affairs) but ultimately owned by the current license holders of The Avengers TV show, StudioCanal, who were the only one's Boom! Comics needed to seek permission from in order to republish the series (scanned from the old comics, smooth move Boom) a few years back.

All of which is to say, pretty much any non-Rebellion Dredd content you can think of is almost certainly owned by Rebellion, but may be subject to an ongoing licensing agreement with someone else.  Phew!

* - For properties not ultimately owned by Rebellion, but published under license by them (or IPC) - Dan Dare, Urban Strike etc. etc. - see above; the strips are almost certainly owned by the rights holder and a specific licensing agreement would need to be struck to reprint them.  This would also apply retrospectively to all of the Eagle content that the Dan Dare Corporation apparently bought by accident (I'd love to read more info on what happened there...)

* - The Comic Relief Comic is a copyright nightmare, a miracle it ever got published in the first place to be honest.  Its not immediately clear who owns the story itself, but you'd not be able to reprint it without  licensing agreements with probably dozens of different rights-holders.  Don't hold your breath on ever seeing that one again.

* - V For Vendetta was sold to DC by Moore, Lloyd and Dez Skinn back in the 1980's, under similar/the same terms as Watchmen - a decent sales royalty and once it goes out of print (i.e. never) we might let you have it back, but probably not.  The rest of the Warrior strips (apart from Marvelman) are owned by the creators, as was Skinn's intention from the get-go (see, he's not all bad...)

* - Miracleman (the character) is now owned by Marvel, who bought the rights from Mick Anglo.  The story Skinn told for years about buying the rights from the Official Receiver was a load of rubbish (hmm, maybe he is all bad...) and the strip was for all intents and purposes created under a (legal) assumption that the character was in the public domain.  Whether it was or not, everyone involved agreed that the best way to resolve the years and years of litigation surrounding it was to assume Anglo still held the rights and for Marvel to buy them off him.  The question of who owns the rights to the actual work done for Warrior and Eclipse is much more complicated and (as far as I know) still being ironed out between the creators and Marvel; just one of the myriad reasons why Gaiman's conclusion to the series is still yet to appear.

Hope that's cleared something up for someone, anyway :)

Frank

Quote from: dstransmissions on 20 September, 2018, 08:36:04 PM
All of which is to say, pretty much any non-Rebellion Dredd content you can think of is almost certainly owned by Rebellion, but may be subject to an ongoing licensing agreement with someone else.

The publisher's blurb on the opening pages of the DC Judge Dredd comics does indeed say '© Egmont Foundation 1995'.

Since that's a lot of free content and Tharg has reprinted just about everything else of any interest, my guesses why we've not seen these stories in a Megazine floppy are:

A/ DC negotiated some kind of mad 100-year lease

B/ Tharg doesn't think he owns the copyright

C/ Egmont never bothered to ask for film/digital copies of that material, so Rebellion didn't receive it in the huge mountain of archive they bought. DC must have it somewhere, but even if they can find it, there's a good chance it was stored on CD, in a format that's now unreadable/a pain in the arse to reformat.

Cheers, Law-Talking Guy.



sheridan

Quote from: dstransmissions on 20 September, 2018, 08:36:04 PM
This would also apply retrospectively to all of the Eagle content that the Dan Dare Corporation apparently bought by accident (I'd love to read more info on what happened there...)

As long as we get that Bloodfang collection at some point!

Quote* - The Comic Relief Comic is a copyright nightmare, a miracle it ever got published in the first place to be honest.  Its not immediately clear who owns the story itself, but you'd not be able to reprint it without  licensing agreements with probably dozens of different rights-holders.  Don't hold your breath on ever seeing that one again.
Once I dig my copy out I might list which IP appears in it!  Having not glanced at it in twenty-something years, all I can remember is the chin-off between JD and Bruce Forsyth...

QuoteHope that's cleared something up for someone, anyway

Ta - it all helps!

John Pannozzi

Rebellion has now bought out the pre-1970 Fleetway/IPC library from Epris Fund II/TI Media (nee Time UK):

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-45645553

https://downthetubes.net/?p=101020

Interestingly, the Down the Tubes article claims that the deal doesn't include the magazine Look and Learn.  Anyone know who owns Look and Learn?  It also claims that TV Comic, Countdown and TV Action are owned by Reach plc / the Mirror Group.

sheridan

Quote from: Frank on 20 September, 2018, 09:03:47 PM
Quote from: dstransmissions on 20 September, 2018, 08:36:04 PM
All of which is to say, pretty much any non-Rebellion Dredd content you can think of is almost certainly owned by Rebellion, but may be subject to an ongoing licensing agreement with someone else.

The publisher's blurb on the opening pages of the DC Judge Dredd comics does indeed say '© Egmont Foundation 1995'.

Since that's a lot of free content and Tharg has reprinted just about everything else of any interest, my guesses why we've not seen these stories in a Megazine floppy are:

A/ DC negotiated some kind of mad 100-year lease

B/ Tharg doesn't think he owns the copyright

C/ Egmont never bothered to ask for film/digital copies of that material, so Rebellion didn't receive it in the huge mountain of archive they bought. DC must have it somewhere, but even if they can find it, there's a good chance it was stored on CD, in a format that's now unreadable/a pain in the arse to reformat.

Cheers, Law-Talking Guy.


D/ the main DC Dredd monthly just wasn't good enough to warrant a reprint (I liked Legends of the Law though).