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Domain: newsarama.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to newsarama.com.

Comments · 16

  1. Re:Blasphemy in whose term ? by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 2 · on Pakistan Lifts YouTube Ban For 3 Minutes, Finds More Blasphemy

    THERE IS NO LAW AGAINST DRAWINGS OR ANIME DEPICTING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY in the U.S., because no one is harmed -- or potentially harmed -- in drawings or anime.

    There might not be a explicit law against it, but don't worry -- we'll bend one into shape.

    Guilty ... for possessing "drawings of children being sexually abused": Plea agreement draft and primary, secondary, and tertiary background.

    Synopsis: ... ordered a set of [7] manga volumes ... seized by Post Office workers in 2006. They were (see link.) Each of these volumes featured drawings ... that is not illegal in Japan. Following this, ... home was raided ... further volumes fitting the category of the charge ... [of] possession of obscene comic books without literary or artistic merit.

    Result: (?forced to?) plead guilty and sentenced to six months.


    Agree, child porn is bad. But then again, who decides exactly what a child is?

    A real child in front of you ends up depicted as photons on your retina which you recognize as a child.
    A picture in a book ends up depicted as photons on your retina which you recognize as a child.

    Therefore if it's a naughty picture, you're harming a child. 20 years, off you go.
    Next case please, bailiff?

  2. Re:It's Just Annoying in Comics by PCM2 · · Score: 1 · on The Decreasing Impact of Death In Sci-fi

    Ever since the death of Superman woke up an audience for DC, every couple of years they kill or maim someone iconic just for the publicity.

    Apparently it works. Marvel just announced plans to kill off a major character every quarter.

  3. Big Eyes, Small Mouth by JoshDM · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Smart Contact Lenses

    Glaucoma? Medical applications? Pshaw. I'd rather hear more about the cosmetic uses of custom contact lenses.
     

  4. Re:Smells Hammy by Salgak1 · · Score: 1 · on USAF Counter-Terror Funds Buy "Comfort Capsules"

    Hey, it's good enough for Hellboy. . .

  5. Re:Just extrapolate by dpastern · · Score: 1 · on Joss Whedon Back on TV

    I doubt it, there are many references to an Angel 6 series, including adapted comics for it:

    http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=110457

    See the first where it mentions David Fury and what was meant to happen in Season 6. Some things were pushed forward as you mention (Wesley's death), but there was life in our heroes after that last filmed episode.

    Dave

  6. Re:Made a profit by RedWizzard · · Score: 1 · on Any Prospect of Serenity Sequel Quashed
    If it made 13 mill on DVD sales
    It didn't, you misread. It made $13M on DVD and VHS rentals. Sales were much higher.
    I think it was badly marketed which cost it sales but it's unlikely to have ever broke even making it a very bad risk for the studio to make sequels. I liked the movie version but it didn't even come close to seeing a profit based on the numbers you provided.
    I didn't provide all the numbers. I didn't provide DVD sales, TV rights income, merchandising, foreign distributions rights etc. That is why a movie is usually considered to break even if it's ticket sales match it's production budget, because of all the extra income that is usually not mentioned specifically. As it happens people have done a fairly comprehensive analysis for Serenity: "So that's $21 million from the box office, $24 million from DVD sales, $10 million from rentals, and around $5 million from tv rights for a total of $60 million. With Serenity costing $49 million to make and advertise it's estimated that Universal has made $11 million off of the movie. Not nearly enough for Universal to invest in another movie, but there's still profit to be made."

    Not great, but certainly a profit. So I stand by my statement that the article was wrong on that point.

  7. Re:Made a profit by nutshell42 · · Score: 1 · on Any Prospect of Serenity Sequel Quashed
    Here is an more accurate estimation of Serenity's profits from mid-February, taking into account that Universal didn't get all of that money. Nevertheless it definitely made a profit.

    If your $13M for rentals are accurate and DVD sales followed a similar trajectory it could be a good deal more by now but still far from the massive profitability studios expect before they green-light a sequel.

  8. New Trek Comics by tverbeek · · Score: 2, Informative · on Star Trek XI - What We Know

    For those who can't wait until this movie comes out (or who may not want to think about it), there's an alternative in the meantime: upstart comics publisher IDW has announced that they'll be launching a new ST:TNG comics series in January (loosely tied to the series' 20th anniversary next year), with TOS and perhaps other Trek titles coming later. More details here.

  9. UNFAIR! you read the article ... by rewinn · · Score: 1 · on Marvel and DC Enforce "Superhero" Trademark

    ... and noticed something I did not:

    >the comic was renamed over 2 years ago and BoingBoing's most recent blurb was merely there to announce that Marvel and DC, by sponsoring a science show, got Superhero(TM) included in one of the flyers.

    I *HATE* that!

    But, as you say, the article links to a posting dated 01-30-2004 . So why is this news?

  10. Re:why roll over? (A Cynical Suggestion...) by rewinn · · Score: 1 · on Marvel and DC Enforce "Superhero" Trademark

    The term "superhero" long ago lost any unique association with DC/Marvel, the same as aspirin did. Early D+D used the term "superhero" to stand for a mere 8th-level fighter (back when that really was a super character.) In short, the trademark can not be enforced.

    But that's not necessarily the best path for a small publisher, considering that, as the article says: "It looks like all of the readers that took a chance and purchased our book before the title change are now in the possession of a collector's item."

    1. Publish comic using generic term
    2. Get form letter from DC/Marvel
    3. Change name, so comic is now collector's item
    4. ???
    5. Profit!!!

  11. Re:Should've gone back to the comics by Intellectual+Elitist · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Hulk Smash! Lacks Subtlety
    > Likewise, the developers of Hulk video games could have referred to the comics.

    Yeah, really. They could have maybe gotten someone like Paul Jenkins, who'd actually written the Hulk comic before, to work on the game with them. And maybe even base the game off of one of his comic book storylines. And they could have even gone the extra mile and done a comic book miniseries based on the game. Oh, wait -- they already did.

    Granted, Jenkins was hardly the best writer the Hulk had ever seen, and the translation of the story to the game wasn't the best, either -- but the game itself was extremely solid and enjoyable, and immensely replayable.

  12. Re:Don't extend the end by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Dark Tower Comic Series Confirmed

    They're not going to. http://www.newsarama.com/JoeFridays/JoeFridays23.h tml is a long interview with Marvel about the series. The first 6 comics are going to be about Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain while they're in Mejis (DT4.)

  13. Re:webcomics? by aej17 · · Score: 1 · on Comics Escape a Paper Box and Evolve to the Web
    I dunno, I looked at some of that art, and while somewhat impressive, none of it reminded me of the best art happening right now in books. At all.

    I'll take George Perez, Jose-Luis Garcia Lopez, Chris Claremont, Phil Jimenez, Ed Benes, Jim Lee, and many others over what I am likely to see on the Web anytime soon.

    The lack of a cohesive universe also hurts a lot of webcomics. That doesn't matter to a lot of people, but I like the fact that I can open a copy of Batgirl and it can tie-in to something completely unrelated, like Adventures of Superman.

    Seriously, not that this is a fair comparison, but when webcomics can offer a chance of something like this, I'm there.

  14. Re:Just so they don't get slashdotted. by Lachrymite · · Score: 2, Informative · on Getting Small Press (Comics) To The Masses

    From Newsarama:

    According to comments made by Marvel President Bill Jemas, when a creative team submits a comic book they receive an $8,000 budget to produce it. Marvel then covers the cost of publishing, marketing and distribution, and pays bonuses to the team, based upon sales. If the book sells well, the creators could earn a number of bonuses at different tiers.

    There's also a lot more information here, and there will be more info in Marville #7 (which is probably the only way they can get that particular comic to sell, it it not popular).

  15. Re:Just so they don't get slashdotted. by Lachrymite · · Score: 2, Informative · on Getting Small Press (Comics) To The Masses

    From Newsarama:

    According to comments made by Marvel President Bill Jemas, when a creative team submits a comic book they receive an $8,000 budget to produce it. Marvel then covers the cost of publishing, marketing and distribution, and pays bonuses to the team, based upon sales. If the book sells well, the creators could earn a number of bonuses at different tiers.

    There's also a lot more information here, and there will be more info in Marville #7 (which is probably the only way they can get that particular comic to sell, it it not popular).

  16. Re:Not a trademark? by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 1 · on Another Garbage Patent
    Out of curiosity, why 1987?

    1987 was when "everything" became copyrightable- at that time, the Berne convention made copyrights apply similarly across most of the globe. Previously, there were all sorts of loopholes where a person in one nation could ignore copyrights registered elsewhere.

    But yes, from a US-centric viewpoint, the Copyright Act of 1976 was the big change.

    Anyway, no characters are not copyrightable. Check out, among other things, Copyright circular 44 at the US Copyright Office. Names are not copyrightable; they belong under trademark law. A

    How can names of fictional people be trademarked?
    The circular you reference doesn't say that characters can be trademarked. It says they "may". And by trademark law, they may, if they are used to identify goods (such as the title of a comic strip, or branded merchandise).

    Here's the definition of trademark:
    • A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design ... that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.

    That's all. "Characters" don't fit there at all.

    Now, back to Circular 44. It never says "characters can't be copyrighted"- it says "the idea of a character can't be copyrighted". That's just to stay consistent with copyright law as a whole, which claims "Ideas cannot be protected, only their embodiments".

    Rather than trying to pick apart a distinction between "character" and "idea of a character", lets just check how the legal system in the past 20 years has treated it.
    You can open a newspaper today and read about the upcoming movie "LXG", which features a team of "public domain characters"- except for one of them. The Invisible Man was Hawley Griffin originally, but it turns out the copyright is still in effect some places, so the movie renamed him Rodney Skinner.

    Here's a TOC for a law review, with articles claiming characters can become public domain (implying they were once copyrighted).

    And here's even a few slashdot articles mentioning characters that've gone in and out of copyright.

    specific description of a character may be part of a copyrighted work, BUT the character qua character is more of an idea, and thus not copyrightable either.

    For any reasonable legal purpose, characters go out of copyright when the work they were first published in does.

    Yes, but wouldn't confusion NATURALLY occur as a result of using MM?

    No.

    Well if everyone on Earth can freely copy MM, how can Disney possibly allege that they're a unique source for him?

    They can't. Neither can Apple computer claim that a fruit, or pictures of a fruit, is uniquely from them. But if you use an Apple to refer to a corporation, or to a computer, then you're infringing.

    If Mickey Mouse was PD, it would be just like any other PD concept which has been incorporated into a trademark.

    The existince of a PD Mickey would've weakened Disney's trademark in a few places (those limited areas where confusion can occur), and that's why they made sure the copyright will never end.