[crashryan]

I was elated to read on Boing Boing that someone is having success trying to break the Dille Trust's lock on Buck Rogers. As the article points out, the early Buck stuff, including the source novel, passed into the public domain years ago. However the Dille organization insists it owns everything and threatens would-be users with lawsuits unless they fork over a hefty fee. I'm sure it's only coincidence that the main Dille pickle also publishes the only "licensed" Buck reprints. There's too much of this sort of rubbish today: law-twisting scumbags with no claim to a property extorting "license fees" from victims they know lack the resources to fight a suit in court.

Sherlock Holmes and "Happy Birthday" were finally wrested from the trolls. It'd be nice to see Tarzan & Co. freed as well. And especially--in my dreams!--the Mouse himself. The aim of most contemporary copyright legislation is to transfer ownership of properties to corporations and shysters who will then "own" them for eternity. (Most of the other legislation is devoted to legalizing the theft of creations of small creators and re-assigning ownership to said corporations and shysters.)

The Boing Boing article links to more detailed info about the case:

http://boingboing.net/2015/10/16/buck-rogers-and-the-copyright.html