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When it comes to comic books copyright is one of the most
basic forms of intellectual property according to the article written on a well-known
comic book blog.(Click here to read the article)
The funny thing about
copyright that we really tend to get confused by is that copyrights protects
that the expression of the idea, not the idea itself as a whole. An example
that you can see with comic books is that, the copyright protects the words and
actual drawing that the creator uses to show the adventure or sequence in the
comic. Unfortunately it does not protect based on the fact that their character
was dressed as a bat or the superheroes powers. In this blog post I will be
explaining different cases of the iconic comic book company Marvel, when it
comes to copyright issues.
The first
case is from 2005 where Marvel Entertainment Inc. sued NCSoft Corporation due
to copyright and trademark infringement. Basically NCSoft had a online video
game that gave players the liberty to create their on version of superheroes
and Marvel felt like the characters being created in this game looked to much
like his own characters. Now after reading paragraph one we know that copyright
only protects the words and the adventure but not the character per say. After a long battle they finally settled on
December 2005 and NCSoft won the claim and did not have to make any changes to
their game, but did agree to have more in mind the Marvel characters for their
next games.
The second case is from 2011 where the comic artist Jack
Kirby heirs sued Marvel Entertainment Inc. due to a copyright with his
characters Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers. Basically the
heirs of this artist thought that the characters copyrights belonged to them as
a heir from the artist. The final settlement stated that the copyrights to
these characters belonged to Marvel Entertainment and not the heirs of this
influential artist.
The FinalCase was in 2012 Stan Lee Media Inc. vs The Walt Disney Company, in this case
the Stan Lee Media Inc. is suing the Disney Company for copyrights of the
characters in the Avengers movie. The Walt Disney Company has currently made a
motion for has dismissal due to the fact that Stan Lee sold all copyrights of
these characters to The Walt Disney Company in 2009 for a whooping $4.4 billion
dollars and no longer works for the Stan Lee Media Inc.
1 comments:
Copyright infringement is always going to be an issue when dealing with intellectual property. Your post provided an interesting look into some of the issues facing comic book writers and artists. Cartoon and comic book characters are always at risk for infringement because they are recognizable, easy to replicate, and the majority of people have no idea what the laws are regarding this form of art. Posts like these are definitely needed to educate others and make it known that comic books are protected just like film or music, and should be respected like all other art forms.
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