Slashdot Mirror
Copyright and Webcomics - A New Trend?
Selanit writes "There's an article at Publisher's Weekly reporting that Seven Seas Entertainment, an up-and-coming publisher of English-language manga, has adopted a new copyright policy. When contracting to publish webcomics like Earthsong or Inverloch, they offer the artists full control over the copyright. This is highly unusual in comics - most companies use joint-ownership arrangements. The founder of Seven Seas asked himself 'For properties that were already written and illustrated without any input from Seven Seas, how could I justify asking for partial ownership?' And apparently, the answer led him to abandon that practice. It'll be interesting to see if this helps his company attract new talent. (There's a previous Slashdot article that may be relevant.)"
Comic Genesis (formerly KeenSpace) has been doing that since 2000. It doesn't want to own the copyright to the comic (and it says so in the TOS). It just wants to host the comic, and give some services (like automated updates, promotion and forums).
But then, I'm the admin behind CG, and my comic is proudly on their servers.
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# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Wow, a story about someone that actually cares about artists and giving them a "fair deal"? One can only hope that this type of thing leaks into other companies and media.
Even if the idea is not new, it still requires courage to copy it. There is also a good chance that they came up with the idea themselves, There are so few companies in the entertainment industry with corporate ethics. Anybody who ever looked at a DVD and wonders why only the distributing company is listed as copyright owner may soon figure out that there is something badly wrong with the entertainment industry. To pursue a business model which does not suck every cent out of an artist can be a risky attempt. I like to compliment Comic Genesis and Seven Seas Entertainment!
What is the practical difference between selling the copyright and exclusively licensing?
Actually, these days Image Comics is perhaps the most famous. Founded by a group of artists who largely made their names on company-owned Marvel comics, including Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri, Jim Valentino, Jim Lee, and Rob Liefeld, Image published a number of top-selling creator-owned properties, including WildCATS, Spawn, the Savage Dragon, Youngblood, etc.
These days Image publishes a number of less-mainstream titles, but the policy is still that the creators own the copyrights to their works. Three current favorites, off the top of my head, are Godland, Sea of Red and the Walking Dead.
Like the parent says, however, Image was hardly the first. Not including the undergrounds, Marvel was one of the first companies to experiment with giving creators ownership of their titles, with the Epic line in the 80s.
And, of course, while it's laudable for a publisher to give authors control over the works they create, tis is nothing new for the mainstream publishing industry. If you write a novel, you don't typically have to sign over the copyright to your publisher. The really amazing thing is not that this company wants to give comics artists control over their work, but that in 2005 the comics industry is still so backwards that this should even be news.
Breakfast served all day!
"The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed." Adam Smith 1776
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Perhaps not widely popular, but one of my favorites. http://www.cheston.com/pbf/archive.html
There is nothing new about any of this, except Webcomics are involved.
Creators have had an avenue to retain copyights of their material since Eclipse Comics And Pacific Comics came on the scene in the early 80s, and this continues today with the smaller publishers, such as Dark Horse, IDW, Avatar, and Image. And although it is a tiny part of their output, even Marvel And DC do some creator owned publishing.
I still read and collect comics, but I personally perfer to buy creator owned works when possible.