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Copyright concerns put a halt to two particularly exciting geeky projects in the past week. Lucasfilm put the kibosh on plans to raise money to build a full-size Star Wars AT-AT walker, and CBS stopped a Star Trek-themed "DiagnosticPADD" app. More »
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In 1992, Neil Gaiman created Medieval Spawn and Angela, a warrior angel, for Todd McFarlane's up-and-coming Spawn comic. Years later, the characters "Dark Ages Spawn" and "Tiffany and Domina" debuted in Spawn. McFarlane must now pay Gaiman for these derivatives. More »
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In Paul Melko's Walls Of The Universe, our hero visits an alternate world where patents and copyrights only last a short time. What would happen to science fiction if this was true in our world? More »
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Plagued by fans complaining about the possibility of being robbed of the Watchmen movie by a copyright infringement lawsuit from 20th Century Fox, a statement from the studio has asked fans back off, direct their anger elsewhere and respect proper ownership of intellectual property. Because, you know, that worked so well for the record industry. More »
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Click to viewIt's looking bad for the Watchmen movie, now that a judge is allowing a lawsuit by Fox over the film rights to the famous graphic novel to go forward. It's even worse when you realize that the same judge ruled against Warner Bros. in a case involving the rights to a Dukes Of Hazzard movie two years ago. But the reality is, the Dukes got their movie, and so will the Minutemen. Fox is seeking an injunction to stop the March release of Warners' Watchmen movie, and they've managed to find the most sympathetic judge in L.A., Lawrence Feess. In a nutshell, Fox argues that Warners obtained movie rights from producer Lawrence Gordon, but Fox already owned the rights to distribute any movie made by Gordon. In a similar case involving the Dukes movie, Judge Feess granted a preliminary injunction preventing Warners from releasing the film. But in the Hazzard case, Warner Bros. agreed to pay the plaintiffs at least $17.5 million to settle their claims, and the movie came out as planned. (In retrospect, Warners may regret that settlement, considering how badly Dukes did.) It seems likely that Fox is simply lining up for a payout, and Watchmen will come out on time - but it'll simply be even more expensive than Warner Bros. already bargained on. Watchmen Babies image from Time.com. [New York Times] More »
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If you're concerned that the family of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel regaining part of the copyright to Action Comics #1 means that you're going to be deprived of new Superman comics or episodes of Smallville, then I have good news for you. That's not going to happen anytime soon, as DC Comics still owns half of the character's copyright, and most of the character's mythology. Over at Uncivil Society, lawyer Jeff Trexler has taken the time to make sure that even the legally-stupid like myself understand just what's going on with the battle over the Man of Steel. More »
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Why are there no cool cybernetic limbs (like on the left) in the new Bionic Woman TV show? Many of us speculated that the creators thought nanobots were cooler, and regular old cyborgs were too old-school. But it turns out the answer has more to do with legalities, according to creator David Eick: More »
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