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What will Zig Forums do when batman enters public domain in 11 years?
Carson Phillips
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Brayden Perez
Probably just storytime the shit out of all the old comics.
>protip: you won't be able to make your own Batman comics because DC will still hold all the essential trademarks on the IP, you'll just be able to reproduce the older comics without having to pay DC.
Juan Roberts
What's even the god damn point then
Colton Wright
Like Mickey it will NEVER happen
Isaac Powell
Only the first year. Besides Batman himself, we get Gordon, Julie Madison, Bruce's unnamed family doctor, Wong of Chinatown, Dr. Death, The Monk, Carl Kruger, Duc' D' Orterre, Frenchy Blake, Alfred Stryker and the batplane and bat-a-rang. You couldn't use anything after March 1940 (the comics were usually dated 2 months in advance).
Batman can't work with the police, you may or may not be able to call the city Gotham, he kills occasionally, and Bruce doesn't have his own company. You could have some fun I guess doing period piece stories imagining what if Robin had never been created and fleshing out the early villains. Too bad you couldn't use Hugo Strange, but The Monk and Duc D' Orterre have potential.
Isaiah Bailey
I don't know really, people can make their own fanfics and fancomics right now without these characters being in the public domain so I never really understood the point.
Caleb Myers
Fun fact, Irving Berlin lived long enough to see some of his own songs become public domain.
The point is that very large corporations used their vast legal and political resources to maintain ownership of IPs that make them a lot of money.
Lincoln Wood
> DC will still hold all the essential trademarks on the IP
How the fuck does that work? This is confusing. I thought X is either public domaine or not. How can you be public domain while still being held by someone's trademark?
Gavin Ward
Felix the cat has been in the public domain for decades,however because of trademarks no one can use him with out universals permission
Thomas Torres
Disney, WB and other big companies have spent several decades and lots of money getting IP laws stretched out as far as they can to maintain ownership of valuable brands. They've also trademarked the shit out of everything, and unlike copyrights trademarks don't expire so long as the IP is being used. Another example, the Fleischer Superman cartoons. The copyright expired on those a while ago so they're all over the internet for free now, but WB still has the active trademark on Superman (the name, design, symbol, etc) because they're still producing new material and merchandise. If they ever stopped making new Superman shit, then the trademarks would start to lapse and anyone could make and sell new Superman material.
Zachary Flores
And yeah, it is confusing but when most of these systems were conceived no one had any idea a massive company like Disney or AT&T/Warner would even exist, much less want to hold an IP in perpetuity. They were basically created so someone could reap the benefits of an idea or work while they were alive, but corporations live a lot longer than humans (though legally, both are people).
Jose Johnson
Dc just gonna renew it
Xavier Cruz
Preservation of history and ease of access. Revisionist history starts with withholding history.
Aaron Kelly
Take the Batman of Arkham and make it the only setting
Bentley Roberts
>You could have some fun I guess doing period piece stories imagining what if Robin had never been created and fleshing out the early villains.
Actually dope as hell if the accessible canon is a rolling event horizon, branching out into all these sorts of possibilities as the years go on.
But there's enough other stuff that's supposed to be public domain that I anticipate the same old cockblocking.
One day when I'm too rich I'm going to hide in a cave in China with my creative team and just make my own ripoff storylines of whatever franchises I like for free and not give a fuck about IP.
Jason Parker
We're going to get just as many new Batman stories as we get from Captain Marvel being public domain.
Cameron Nguyen
Oh and no batcave either
Easton Flores
You can make Batman comics but only with elements from comics published in 1939. Then the next year, you can use elements that debuted in 1940 (Batmobile, Bat-signal I think, Gotham City name) etc.
You will be able to freely create and distribute new Batman comics, but you can't market them in a way that would make consumers think you are associated with DC (like using their logos.)
Blake Moore
But can I use the bat-logo since it debuted in 1939?
Anthony Peterson
You know, that actually would be pretty cool now that I think about it. With more limited toys to play with, a good writer could have a ball expanding on them. It'd be funny as hell if some new peak Alan Moore-tier talent came along and turned these non-DC Batman comics into a genuine success that outsold DC's.
The complicated web of rights to The Marvels (whole issues have been taken down from Digital Comics Museum as recently as last year due to) as well as the brand confusion with Marvel's Kree heroes has probably contributed to that more than anything else.
Blake Roberts
No, because DC has an active trademark on the bat symbol and that trumps the copyright expiration on the old stories.
Jackson Bell
There really isn't one, but op is a weird autist about public domain
Jack Smith
that's what you think
Eli Bell
Conan is public domain in Europe, but has debated copyright status in the US (the company that owns Conan still have trademark and rights to a lot of Conan stuff, but it's believed the original text by Howard may actually be public domain). Ablaze Publishing decided to reprint the Euro Conan comics under the title "The Cimmerian".
Justin Clark
If the first year of Batman goes PD, then by that point a shitload of the old Shadow pulps would be PD (The Shadow pulp started in 1931 so by 1939, there will be 188 Shadow stories PD at the same time) that means you can just do what Bill Finger did for the first Batman story.
Eli Gutierrez
I liked monks mid 2000s storyline, the one where he gets hit with lightning on top of the building
Caleb Kelly
>The complicated web of rights to The Marvels (whole issues have been taken down from Digital Comics Museum as recently as last year due to)
It's mainly because a lot of issues got copyright renewed decades ago and a lot of others didn't. This ended up with some really weird things like where every single chapter of Monster Society of Evil is PD except for the last chapter.
Connor Bennett
>Felix the cat has been in the public domain for decades,however because of trademarks no one can use him with out universals permission
All the marketable stuff surrounding Felix come from his 50s TV show anyways, which is still very much in copyright. No one cares about silent era Felix.
Kevin Howard
But I could create an expy of any character I wanted right now.
Jace Powell
It depends on what Bat logo you're talking about. The bat logo in Detective Comics #27 is nothing like the later logos. You definitely can't use the yellow oval logo because that got started in 1964.
Lincoln Lee
You will be able to make your own Batman comics, you just can't title them or promote them as Batman. You're also restricted as to what aspects you can use in your productions to what has reached the public domain, which progresses by year of debut. For example, Dick Grayson will not be public domain until a year after Batman.