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Court Rules Batmobile Is Entitled To Copyright Protection

Posted by samzenpus on from the bat-rights dept.

schwit1 writes: The Batmobile's bat-like appearance and other distinct attributes, including its high-tech weaponry, make it a character that can't be replicated without permission from DC Comics, the copyright holder, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. "As Batman so sagely told Robin, 'In our well-ordered society, protection of private property is essential,' " states the opinion. "Here, we conclude that the Batmobile character is the property of DC, and Towle infringed upon DC's property rights when he produced unauthorized derivative works of the Batmobile as it appeared in the 1966 television show and the 1989 motion picture."

4 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Private property? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just as copyright infringement is not theft; Intellectual property is not property. Intellectual property is merely a legal privilege, a set of rules that allows some people to restrict others in the free use of their own, true property. If anything, Batman's "sage words" defend the copier.

    1. Re:Private property? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And without significant limits on "intellectual property" nothing would be made out of fear that some distant relative of some inventor from the 15th century could come in and sue your company into the ground. There is a very good reason why the founders put "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" and "limited times" into the constitution regarding copyrights/patents. Society GRANTS artists and inventors the rights to hold a monopoly over something they create for a LIMITED TIME with the purposes of encouraging them and others to create more, not to grind society to a halt while high priced lawyers dig through centuries of minutia trying to figure out who "owns" an idea.

  2. Re:Well that settles it then by GrumpySteen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    MANY MORE people will start creating batmobiles and replicas of other DC comics things.

    That's actually okay and they won't do anything to prevent people from creating those replicas. It's only when someone decide to go into business creating and selling replicas that they'll take legal action to stop it.

  3. Re:It should... but what about Ecto-1 by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There goes cosplay.

    No, you're allowed to make your own costume for your own private use.

    That is "fair use".

    What you aren't allowed to do is make 50,000 of them and sell them. That requires permission.