Betty Boop and Indefinite Copyright

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the Fleischer estate has lost a court battle for the rights to Betty Boop, a character created by Grim Natwick at Max Fleischer's studio in 1930. The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals (based in San Francisco) ruled against the Fleischers, saying in their decision, 'If we ruled that AVELA's depictions of Betty Boop infringed Fleischer's trademarks, the Betty Boop character would essentially never enter the public domain.'"

Comments

Yet again, no information

[PCM2]

Once again, a story about a lawsuit posted to /. with a particular spin but very light on facts. According to one of the linked articles:

[Judge] Wallace also said the defendant AVELA Inc, which licensed Betty Boop dolls, T-shirts and handbags under a copyright based on vintage posters, did not infringe any trademark, having not held out its products as "official" or misled customers.

So according to one article Avela licensed the images, according to another they were public domain. According to one, the images are OK because they're not claimed to be "official," according to the other the images are OK because Betty Boop is public domain. What's the real story? Is it about public domain? Is it about the relationship between copyright and trademark? I have no idea. Neither the reporters or the submitter bothered to explain, or apparently, even to find out.

Re:Yet again, no information

[richie2000]

The real story seems to be that PD trumped trademarks. Which is good, since trademarks can run for ever, while copyrights expire. If you could leverage eternal trademarks to prolong copyrights, that would defeat the spirit of copyright law.

Re:14 years, nothing else

[jbeaupre]

Easy. Two words: Property Tax.

First 14 years: 0 tax
Next 14 years: 5% of assessed value, minimum $25,000 per year per copyright
Next 14 years: 5%, $50,000 min
Next 14 years: 5%, $100,000 min

and so on. Make people and companies VERY careful about which works they wish to maintain copyright on.