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DC Comics Prevails In Batmobile Copyright Dispute
think_nix writes "Wired reports of U.S. District Judge Ronald S. W. Lew siding with DC Comics in the federal copyright court case against Gotham Garage owner Mark Towle. DC accused Towle of selling 'unlicensed replica vehicle modification kits based on vehicle design copyrights from plaintiff's Batman property, including various iterations of the fictional automobile, the Batmobile.' Lew noted that 'DC Comics pleads sufficient facts to support its allegations. Although, generally copyright law does not apply to "useful articles" such as autos.'"
I guess I can no longer count on my plan to sell copies of Wonder Woman's invisible jet to make my billions.
Wow... Someone read too many comic books and not enough of other reading material to develop proper spelling....
I just Hollywood looks at Star Trek and the pads they were using , and knock on Apples door for a few billion dollars.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Please put that awful website out of its misery. Slashdot it, take an axe to the servers, email how-to documents to its perpetrator ( rhondamazurek@gmail.com ), I don't care! Get it out of my eyes!
DC Comics has withstood the defendant's motion to dismiss. The judge has not sided with them on any merits of their claims; he has merely said they have enough of a legal basis to proceed with their lawsuit. DC has not won yet.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Memo to Mark Towle: Na na na na na na na na...
About the pending Appeal to this case.
DC comics has better things to do than sue kit-car makers. Not as if DC is competing in this arena.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The "useful articles" clause isn't meant to be used as an end run on the law. It's why you'll get nailed trying to sell t-shirts of licensed characters. Hey but they are "useful articles" wink, wink, nudge, nudge. He made a business piggybacking off some one else's designs. I think he may have been fine if he designed his own take on a bat mobile but he was selling outright replicas.
I can see this being a problem for a mass-produced replica or knock-off toys, but the kind of buyer for this product does not have any other choice than to get one custom made. If I remember correctly the original was a one off by George Barris, and the Gotham Garage website hails a Munster Mobile, with apparently no issues there. If someone wants to plunk down (presumably) big bucks to fulfill a childhood dream, they should be able to. This is copyright gone too far.
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
How will this ruling be applied to Fan made props. There are many how's on replicating Star Trek props (http://www.instructables.com/id/how-to-make-a-wooden-phaser/). Does this ruling now stop me from making them? Selling them at a convention? How much would replica need to differ to bypass this? This really seems ripe for abuse.
If all he got was a lawsuit, count himself lucky...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
From the order, "Defendant's argument, however, ignores the exception to the "useful article" rule, which grants copyright protection to nonfunctional, artistic elements of an automobile design that can be physically or conceptually separated from the automobile."
If you really think this through, the fender of the car cannot be separated from the car as a stand-alone work -- the same for the hood, the driver's seat, the steering wheel, and so on. The only thing that could really be separated from the car as a stand-alone work is the bat emblem. Should this guy really pay DC Comics 150k because he drew the sihoulette of a bat on a car?
http://www.xkcd.com/1004/
Doesn't this mean that all the automobile companies can now sue DC comics for drawing pictures of their cars?
You can't create a graphic novel with the same drawings of the same vehicle, that would be copyright infringement. Copyright does not extend to real world articles, that would mean copyrights have become patents, which protect ideas. Making a real world replica of a graphic novel image does not affect income from the graphic novel in any way except to increase it's visibility and thus it's value. Ideas were specifically not protected by copyright so people could use the ideas in exactly this way to create more art and more wealth for everyone.
Since the Batmobile debuted in 1941, using the copyright rules in effect of the times, the name would be public domain since 1991. Since our congressmen are apparently paid by Disney, this date was pushed to 2011 and now 2031. Let us try to guess how much in royalties the descendants of the creators of the name Batmobile will get. Lets see... Oh yes they will get ditkuss.
Bill Finger probably made a total of 50K off of batman his whole goddamn life. So I am not crying for DC here.
Every time I wanted to go to the 7-11 it would be 5 minutes of...
Atomic batteries to power.
- Check
Turbines to speed.
- Check
If DC Comics isn't selling replicas of the Batmobile, and if DC Comis isn't selling licenses to produce the Batmobile, then...
Why shouldn't someone be able to create their own? If someone abandons their intellectual property, then why shouldn't businesses be able to rip that idea off after a sufficient number of years has passed?
Seriously, if the rights owner doesn't wish to persue selling it or licensing the right to produce it, then why shouldn't businesses be able to jump right in (after a sufficient number of years has passed) and start making whatever it is? Because if it ends up abandoned, then it's of no use to anyone!
"Although, generally copyright law does not apply to "useful articles" such as autos."
So we can download a car, if we really want to.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Factory Five makes Shelby Cobra replicas. Carroll Shelby sued to get them to stop in 2000. He lost. He tried again recently for the coupe version. Lost again, with predjudice. Only major change I'm aware of as a consumer is that FactoryFive can't use the term "Cobra" to describe their product. Here's their celebratory press release.
Seems like Gothem Garage should review this case and maybe change their advertising.
One more reason to keep an eye on your money.
DC Comics licensed one guy named Mark Racop to build these cars.
Mark Towle however, made the prototype for the licensed Speed Racer Mach V that was sold some time back (based on a Corvette chassis.)
Mark Towle does great work, his cars are really top notch!
But, unfortunately DC Comics believes there's only room for one licensee for Batmobiles in the market.
Making replica Futuras would be a great idea. But, that would be a very tiny market, even compared with Batmobiles.
Towle does good work, many famous people own his cars.
You know, I don't see DC Comics offering a life-size Batmobile replica.... yet. If they had plans to, this would be a wise exercise of their copyright.
Hope springs eternal.
However, this lawsuit seems to be the result of "intellectual property holders" being goons.
Batrodz llc. now has confirmation that we are US Patent pending on our hand sculpted '66 Gotham Roadster design. The hardest part is getting the application accepted. We have crossed that bridge, and our patent is pending approval. Thanks to good friends with powerful lawyers, They got my application, declaration, design illustrations, and filing fees accepted by the us patent & trademark office. We were also able to get a unique design trademark classification code 12 (vehicles) that certificate has been issued to Batrodz llc. Some people need to realize, don't mess with the bull, or you'll get the horns.
Track IP - Remotely track the IP address of a machine via email or MySQL.
This is where the whole idea of copyright goes to shit. I'd be totally behind the content owner if they were in direct competition with the garage, i.e. DC Comics also sold car modification kits.
I can see how piracy could lead to lost sales.
I can see how creating duplicate products can lead to lost sales.
What I can also see is the net end result here won't bring in any money for DC Comics, doesn't affect sales, and removes a product people were buying without any alternatives.
And thank you, you made me laugh.
No brain, no pain.
If you can't take the Rolls or send your manservant then you're not really committed to the idea.
What a load of crap. It's not as though the sales of this Batmobile are cutting into the profits of DC Comics Batmobile sales. If anything, it helps spur interest in the franchise to see one of these tooling down the street. This just makes me hate DC.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Over his "Batmobile" Cadillac?
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
It's not like the company that owns copyright in the Batmobile's appearance is privately held. One can always in theory buy a controlling interest in the company, even if the price is $19 billion (half the market capitalization of Wayne En, um, TWX) and thus more than any individual is willing to pay.
This is laughable. Getting a patent application accepted is no great achievement. Package up the data an figures onto properly sized pages, make sure the correct sections are present and it's done. Unless it's a provisional application. Then you just fill in a cover sheet and submit whatever it is you have and then things a re magically patent pending. Or maybe it's a design patent. Huge value there.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
If Towle was making replicas of the Batmobile from the original TV series, I'd think that George Barris and/or series producers Greenway Productions / Twentieth-Century Fox Television (and maybe Ford Motor Company) would have a greater claim than DC comics, who only started using the Barris design in the comic books after the TV series started.
Now if this is all about the word "Batmobile", then DC has "prior art"
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.