Legal
The Law Firm of Dewy, Cheatum & Howe
Webcomics vs The Man
Submitted by Ryan Estrada on October 18, 2005 - 00:55
Earlier this week, there was a bit of a dispute between Penny Arcade and attorney Jack Thompson about Jack's offer to pay ten thousand dollars to any game company who would make and release his game about the brutal murder of people in the gaming industry. When someone did, Jack said that the offer was merely satire, and he did not intend to make the donation.
The Penny Arcade boys decided to be the better men, and with nothing more than a brief mention buried beneath their latest news post, made the 10,000 dollar donation themselves, in Jack's name. That's class.
Welton Colbert's experience with Jack Thompson, however, was handled with decidedly less class.
CBLDF Takes Action in Georgia Retailer Case
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on May 24, 2005 - 10:12
Counsel for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund have submitted four motions to dismiss the charges against retailer Gordon Lee, owner of Legends in Rome, GA. Last February, the Fund initiated Lee's defense against charges resulting from accidentally distributing Alternative Comics #2, a Free Comic Book Day book from 2004, to a minor. The anthology includes the story "The Salon" by Nick Bertozzi, which contains a segment depicting Picasso in the nude. The Fund has already spent in excess of $20,000 defending this case.
CBLDF filed four motions on May 2. The first motion seeks to dismiss the John Doe counts. The second seeks to dismiss both felony counts under the rule of lenity, which requires that when a defendant is charged with a felony and a misdemeanor for the same conduct, the lesser penalty must apply. The third motion seeks to dismiss the felony counts on the grounds that Georgia's Distribution of Material Depicting Nudity or Sexual Conduct is unconstitutional on its face and as applied. The fourth motion seeks to dismiss the misdemeanor counts of Distribution of Material Harmful to Minors on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to this case.
PHPComic 2.0 is a POSTpn Comics Display Tool
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 29, 2005 - 13:43
PHPComic 2.0 is a POSTpn module for grabbing comics from the web and displaying them in a POSTpn managed site (Comixpedia is a POSTpn managed site btw).
Although this raises all of the issues debated during the Comictastic news stories, this module, for what it's worth, does seem to include a link to the comic's website. It also has a somewhat active support forum which might provide an opportunity to suggest creator-friendly improvements to the folks behind this piece of code.
Or to learn if there's a way to block it, if you don't want your work displayed via this means of publication.
Penny Arcade Retrive Rights To Penny Arcade
Submitted by Erik Melander on March 19, 2005 - 19:41
Mike Krahulik reports that the legal difficulties surrounding the Penny Arcade brand have finally been worked out.
I am happy to announce that the legal issues surrounding our book have been settled. The rights to our own work are once again in our hands. This means you can finally expect to see new printed Penny Arcade material.
It is likely that this is related to the situation where Krahulik and Holkins inadvertedly signed away some of the rights to their work to an internet marketing firm, as outlined in the NY times article profiling Penny Arcade.
Court Finds School Censorship of Off-Campus Webcomic Unconstitutional
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on March 3, 2005 - 12:54
Digital Strips has the story on a court ruling that a school could not suspend students for the publication of a webcomic on their website.
Serializer Comic Involved In Latest CBLDF Case
Submitted by Erik Melander on February 8, 2005 - 11:58
The latest case of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is the arrest of a comic book retailer for "distributing material depicting nudity" and "distributing obscene material to a minor." The offending material in question is a part of Nick Bertozzi's The Salon, available online at Modern Tales sister site Serializer.
Please. Always Read a Publishing Contract. For the Children.
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 31, 2005 - 15:04
If you, webcomic creator, are ever in a position to get your work published, never, never, assume the publisher is your best buddy and that a "standard contract" is somehow fair to both of you. Companies are not people and most of the time a contract is between you and the company (not the people who work for the company).
This sad story of contract stupidity involves not a webcomic creator but a brilliant mathematician who wrote a book based on his website. You may not be able to calculate differential equations, but you can certainly be smarter about contracts.
Never-ending Cycle of Copyright Extension
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on January 14, 2005 - 13:06
Lawrence Lessig writes an interesting article at Wired about corporate copyright-holders pitting Europe and the United States against each other to continue the extension of copyright terms.
By law, once the limited monopoly granted through copyright expires creative works are placed in the public domain. Under current U.S. law, nothing will enter the public domain until 2019 although that date will change if Congress again extends the copyright term on creative works.
A Sign of the Times: Downloading Comics II
Submitted by Th'_Mole on January 13, 2005 - 12:18
Newsarama continues its coverage of P2P trading of comic book scans. Part 2 includes interviews with a group of individuals involved in facilitating the downloading of comic books.
Government Fact Sheet on Copyright for Comics
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 28, 2004 - 15:54
This handy guide provides a good reference sheet for copyright issues with regards to comics.
Brad Templeton's webpage is also a good cheat sheet for copyright issues, particularly with regards to the Internet.
