Comic Book Plus Forum
About The Comic Books We Have => Comics Uploaded => Topic started by: Tigger on November 14, 2006, 12:34:19 PM
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I have the following comic
Buck Rogers 100 - Toby Press (January 1951)
Only three issues were printed, and as far as I can find, Toby Press it self only lasted a couple of years.
Should I upload this comics, and if yes, where to ?.
Tigger
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Toby Press actually was one of the companies swallowed up by Charlton, some of the Charlton Comics are actually still protected by Copyright, and l have a suspicion the Buck Rogers material is also still under copyright, Toby press would have printed the comics under license from the copyright holder of the time which would have been a member of the Dille family, most likely John F. Dille the original copyright owner, the trademark and copyright would now be owned by the Dille Family Trust. l will leave the final decision to Serj.
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Note that even if the Buck Rogers character and the original material in which he appeared (newspaper strips, right?) are still protected IP, that doesn't necessarily mean that licensed Buck comics are owned by the same party. The licensed comics (assuming they're not just strip reprints), as a derivative work, are separate creative works, and can be owned and sold separately to the Buck character or original strips -- and might in fact have entered the PD on their own even if the character and other works featuring him have not. (Cf. the classic example -- the Fleischer/Famous Superman animated shorts are in the PD because their copyright was never renewed when it was required, even though Superman and most of the original Golden Age Superman stories are still owned lock, stock by DC Comics.)
I express no opinion as to whether the Buck comics actually are in the PD. I merely note that the analysis doesn't end simply because Buck himself, or earlier work featuring him, is still protected.
--Cliffy
P.S. First post. Hi, everybody -- I love the site!
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Both trademark and copyright are still owned by the Dille family, the only exception being TV and movie rights. Unfortunately the on line records do not seem to go back that far so l am having trouble finding out if the copyright was renewed on the strips (pretty sure it would have been though), since the Toby comic is a reprint of the original strip it would have been done under license. Eventually we might have to get the contact details for the current owner and simply ask if we can have them and the golden age comics on the site. But for the time being we will have to decline the kind offer Tigger, sorry about that :(