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Pow! With Supreme Court Rebuff, DC Comics Wins Batmobile Copyright Case (newsoxy.com)
New submitter Mr. Competence writes: The U.S. Supreme court has declined to review a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court declaring that 'the Batmobile is a character that qualifies for copyright protection.' The case involved Mark Towle, a California man who produced replicas of the Batmobile for car-collecting fans of the caped crusader; selling them for about $90,000US each. The original would cost a bit more.
DC? Beg to ask? Nah
A character is a well defined literary concept. A car only becomes a character if it has the qualities of an intelligent entity. For example, KITT in Knight rider. In this context, the Batmobile may qualify for trademark protection but not copyright. I think we have an issue with legal fiction being too disconnected from reality to the point of legal delusion.
Fighting for truth, justice, and extension of copyright law.
Truer words were never spoken crusader
They should have written a comic book about the iPhone. Then they would have won all the lawsuits with people making rectangles with rounded corners.
How is copyright even relevant here? Something like design patent or trademark would make more sense, since the replicas are not copied like literary works or computer data.
If there never was one, then what on earth have they lost?
Nothing.
And what work did they do to satisfy the market?
Nothing.
Who did?
This guy.
Tell me how that's worth thousands of dollars to the one who did no fucking work?
Because it's a design of a vehicle, not a character in a comic or movie.
See, if you don't describe WHY your version is true and instead just pick the law you think applies, a different version is just as easily constructed from equally valid law.
There are a lot of unlicensed replica makers out there. Just look up Captain America Shield replica or Iron Man helmet replica and you will see. I think this will eventually hit them as well. Marvel has already come out with detailed versions of both for half the cost.
I'm no lawyer but I was under the impression that if you let one party get away with infringing your copyright you've tacitly agreed to let others do as well. (Which pretty much means you have to be an asshole about copyright all the time if you want it to be valid.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
If you don't know or don't care who created and what company licenses out Batman and all its regalia by now (hint: It's always listed at the beginning of Batman cartoons and games and has a prominent position in the top corner of the comics); then you obviously aren't nerd enough for this forum and need to STFU and GTFO.
Since it's rather hard to prove he was ultimately damaging the image for the organization who owns the rights to Batman and associated representation, I find this ruling senseless. Regardless of copyright fine print, he was making these for diehard fans, and actually perpetuating the brand. If he was a salesman working for DC Comics making these things right now he would likely be earning a decent salary plus bonuses for the car sales.
So, instead of hiring the guy to work for DC Comics and further perpetuate the image, they choose to legally rape him along with their most hardcore fan base. America once again proves there's nothing like using the law to shoot yourself in the foot.
Welcome to our future. Where Capitalism will be raped by senseless laws instead of working together to benefit all.
And since the physical working design has to concede to the laws of physics, even to the idea of conservation of mass (therefore you can't fit it in a space there wasn't a priori space for it to fit, never a problem in a cartoon: just draw it there), the work was INSIPRED by the DC comic. The design is the designer's own.
Hence design is at work here.
This is why China will beat us:
- Cost of designing something - rapidly falling due to better CAD technology, improved manufacturing techniques.
- Cost of making something - rapidly falling due to improved manufacturing and robotics.
- Cost of determining whether your rounded rectangle is sufficiently different from someone else's - the sky is the limit.
We created an industrial base that reduced real scarcity to amazingly low levels, and now we are taking the things with no natural resource limit (ideas) and are busy creating as much scarcity out of them as possible. My only hope is that when we tell our grandchildren's generation how this works, they will not believe anyone could be that stupid.
Dang! Now what am I going to do with all these invisible jets?
Burn the land and boil the sea........
And we can ABSOLUTELY prove no damages here. They don't make them themselves. At all. Ever.
This is terrible news for anyone who makes unofficial replica film props.... I imagine that next year's comic-con costumes are going to be a bit plainer than they have been in a while.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There have been different Batmobiles throughout the history of the comic and movies
My favorite is the Adam West one from the late 60's
I saw one of those in real life at a Con a few years back.
Anyway who are they going to sue next - tool companies that make utility belts?
That is just silly. your payola must be large first. Exactly why no one works it is really not worth it.
Low pay high deductible insurance no pension keep it find another sucker.
No kids no pets I can get along just fine.
When they quit braking into your home to take your worthless things and instead brake in when you are home to take your life you cant really wonder why.
Frankly, there's a stronger trademark case here, than there is copyright. 1 he's making the replicas for profit, 2 they are part of the batman franchise which is trademarked to hell and back again.
Now, if he changes a few things and calls them individual artworks "inspired by the movie series" they can start the whole thing again.
Last time I checked this wasn't a forum for comic fanboys and nerds. There are likely to be quite a few people reading this that are more interested in the legal or automotive sides of the story than the 'man with tights on under his underpants' side.
That is true. I have a huge, all in special plastic wraps, collection of comic books. As in thousands of them - multiple boxes. Someone needed some money, I loaned them the money, and they gave me the comics in exchange for paying me back. This was years ago.
They had them appraised at something like $6000 retail price. They only owed me $600. I want to say it was 1996. I have no idea what they're worth today and I've not read a damned one of 'em. I figured it was a good investment but it turns out that I didn't need 'em so I still own them. Maybe I'll get really bored some time and look through them. There are a lot of first edition stuff in there - one that I know is first edition is Wolverine and I want to say that the first comic he appeared in is also in the collection.
I guess I could sell 'em but then I'd have to have them reappraised, inventoried, etc. There are boxes and boxes. They're special boxes made for the comic books and they're all wrapped in special plastic bags. Some of them (I presume they're worth more) are actually in stiff plastic cases. They'd had them appraised at retail value from two different shops and, as I recall, both of those shops - after appraising them, still only offered him $500 for the lot. There's an unopened leather-bound Batman in there. I don't know anything about comics, really, but the guy that I got them from actually said that one wasn't one of the more valued ones. I have no idea, I assume prices will have fluctuated.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'll give you 800 for the lot, no questions asked. :-)
I don't blame you for the offer. I won't be back in Maine until April - maybe the start of May. I just took a peek online and it looks like first editions and appearances of Wolverine (he was quite a fan) are worth a bit of money. I'm a bit lazy in my retirement so it's hard telling how much effort I'll put into finding out a more realistic value but, assuming they'd go to a good home, I might be willing to consider an offer. You might want to wait for me to get home and go through a few boxes and then give a more realistic price - I'd probably still be more than fair. I am not really in a position where I'm in need of an income.
So, I don't know what I'll find but I've got Google and some boxes and can take a look when I get home. If you're legitimately interested in tendering an offer - AND - the offer is for a collection and not for a profit then I might be seriously inclined to investigate further. Feel free to hit me up via email. If I'm going to let them go to someone who's going to profit on them then I might as well get all that I can out of them. If they're going to a passionate collector then I'm not too worried about the value. Not sure if that makes much sense.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
If you're looking at selling them, you are pretty much looking at pennies per comic, or a certain price per standard comic box. 99% of them probably aren't even worth those pennies per comic but the people who buy collections are looking for the other 1% that are worth money. Collection from the mid-90's is sort of rough as it was when collecting was big and everybody was buying to speculate on the next big thing so there's lots out there. With the movies that have come out, prices have been upped for some things that were otherwise nearly forgotten, but still it's pretty much a buyers market for comics except for those issues everybody wants. That's before the CGC service and cases, so those special cases are probably not graded in a way that the current market will respect. So, you'd either need to sell them all at once, or have somebody come tell you which ones are worth money (or you could do that online would take a long time) to sell the few that were worth money and if you did it yourself it would be either Ebay or to a store for cheap.
Sounds like the kind of thing you'd get a lot more money for today because it's easier to find buyers using eBay. Looks like a first edition Wolverine is anywhere from $300-$4000 alone, depending on the particular magazine and grade. I guess a lot depends on the source of the collection, if they bagged mint editions it'll be worth much more than used magazines that then were collected for preservation. Pretty sure you did a good investment.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I want to say that there's also his first appearance in there as well. I don't remember all the details but there's actually a list of what's in the collection and an itemized retail value for everything. I'll have to OCR it when I get home. Then I can probably just script something to get a price list/average for them at retail and have some idea of the retail value. There's a scanned list somewhere on my NAS but I'm not spotting it. It's in with insurance documents, I figure they can do the work if something happens to them.
I'll be home in a month or so. I'll see what happens then.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What they're asking and what they're getting are not nearly the same thing. It's not unusual to set up several accounts, each selling the same comic (or other good) at different inflated prices, to make the lowest one look like a steal
Golden age comics, and some silver age comics, are worth money. The problem is that when comic book collecting became big, people started buying them and stuffing them in mylar sleeves with acid-free backing boards, hoping to make money off them. The fact that there are so many comics stored like this drives down the price of one even in mint condition. Plus the gimmicky press runs (I remember watching collectors going oooh and aaaah trying to collect one Detective comic book that had a press run for each of 6 different colored covers - same story inside. They were selling for $15 each a week after release. Today, you'd be lucky to get that. BTW, a month later they were selling for $40 a copy, and people still bought them to "complete the series" That period was a real tulip mania.
I went to high school with Gerry Ross, and a decade or so later I ended up building several stores for him in Montreal, one in LaSalle, and stores in Moncton, Kansas City, and New Jersey, as well as the move to the (then) new warehouse. Got a real good look at how the comic book business works, and trust me, it's all hype. And pretty cut-throat. One time Gerry paid a competitor $15k to drop out of bidding for a collection that he ended up paying $78k because there was no other bidder, then told US customs the guy was smuggling $15k back into the US from a drug deal. You'd have to ask the fool which hurt more - the forfeiture of the money or the cavity probes. It's a really ugly business, and let's face it - there isn't an overwhelming supply of Nicolas Cages wanting to buy Action #1.
And the grading of comics and assigning prices to them is a scam. Has been since the original guide was published, and always will be.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Well, no.
Ever seen a Sidewinder boat?
Ever seen the exact same boat, made from a mold made from a Sidewinder but sold by Glastron?
Sidewinder sued and it turned out that judges can make decisions that follow their own reasoning rather than follow a series of decisions that we mere mortals can follow.
http://www.leagle.com/decision....
Maybe DC Comics and the movie studio are more 'influential' with a judge than some small time car customizer much like Sidewinder vs Glastron?
No brain, no pain.
DC Comics v. Towle at first appears to add to a slippery slope that would eventually see all car designs as copyrightable the moment they roll off an assembly line or a garage.
But, a closer reading of the decision seem to show that what's at issue isn't the shape of the car so much as the names it is marketed under. The 9th Circuit built their opinion atop Halicki Films, LLC v. Sanderson Sales & Mktg. , to wit "an automotive character [Eleanor] may be copyrightable even if it appears as a yellow Fastback Ford Mustang in one film, and a silver 1967 Shelby GT-500 in another."
The Carroll Hall Shelby Trust arranged for a custom car shop to create and market Shelby GT-500 "Eleanor" replicas. If you compare a "stock" GT-500 to the relatively minor mods that make "Eleanor" in the Gone In 60 Seconds 2000 remake, Shelby probably would have been in the clear just selling cars "resembling Eleanor". But, by marketing it as Eleanor, not so fast.
I think this is even more clear with the Towle ruling. Making a Batmobile, probably fine. Marketing it as a Batmobile, with the likely-to-be trademarked Batman logo on the doors, rims, and steering wheel turns out to have been a risky move.
Beating the example to death: if I want to revive a style by assembling and selling Studebaker Avanti lookalikes, and market them as Indietro, I'm probably safe under both the US Copyright Office's definition of "useful articles" and parody case law. But, if I try to slap Avanti on the nose, I'd probably soon end up in hot water with whoever current holds the copyrights and trademarks of the former Avanti Motor Corporation.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I've emailed you. Let me know if you haven't received it. :-)
Makes reasonable sense to me.
s/ comics/ "fossils or minerals"
I've given people specimens worth hundreds of pounds on field trips which I'd spotted, then "guided" the novice towards. Let them have the joy of discovery - I've got the pleasure of another interested and enthusiastic student/ pupil/ friend/ relative. A new mind in "this game" is almost incalculable in value, particularly if attached to educated eyes.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I do not have it. Curiouser and curiouser. The email is valid, properly spelled, and is not obfuscated. (I'm not scared!) Another /.er used it just yesterday.
I am not entirely sure why it's not there. It is not in junk nor is it in my inbox. I just checked all the other folders - not there.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That's akin to what I figure. I'm not a collector but I know some people take it seriously. Some of the comics go back to the 60s so I'm guessing that they're of value to someone for reasons other than monetary. I've absolutely no need for money and I am able to appreciate that some people are interested in things that I am not. So, I'd much rather that they end up in good hands than to be locked away or just turned around and sold. Meh, call me weird, I guess.
I don't really "collect" anything but I do end up with collections. I have a huge collection of automobiles, for example. I did not expect to, or intend to, collect them and they're not what other people would necessarily want but I like them. I've invested absurd amounts of money in them. (Like a 1982 Volvo 245 that's fully restored and marginally modified, a '73 Wagoneer, an '88 Honda Accord LX that I sent back to Japan for restoration - strange things like that.) I didn't really start out to collect them. I just somehow did. You could, almost, say I collect old computers but not really - I've just found some neat ones over the years and kept them. However, I can understand the mentality.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Sent you another email from a different address... hopefully that one will get through. :-)
Cool beans. I'll check it later - there's no huge rush, I hope? I won't be back in Maine until later this year (spring) and I'm actually trying to go to Cuba today or tomorrow. Today is no longer looking likely. I'm trying to get it expedited as I've never gone to Cuba directly from the US before (it was illegal) and I've never had my passport stamped with a Cuban stamp. I want to go there before they're more heavily influenced by the influx of Americans and, maybe, I'll look into some business opportunities there that do something other than leech from the people. I'm actually allowed to spend money there now. So, I'm kind of hoping to go soon but I'm not sure how long I'll get to stay.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
No rush at all! And I'm envious... I've not been to Cuba yet, either. I think I'll have to add that to my list for holiday travel for this year. Well, if you need a security architect in your business ventures, let me know. :-)
We shall see. I've been on the phone with a guy that I met the last time I was there. I'm working on ways to bilk the tourists. ;-) (I'm not kidding. I'd give more details but let's just say that's the goal.)
No, i didn't say defraud the tourists. Just a minor bilking is all. It looks like approval did not go through today.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Isn't bilking the keystone of tourism? That's precisely why I despise 'tourist-y' things.
Good luck getting your approval tomorrow. Sounds like great craic!
LOL Still no approval. *sighs* It could take a while and, if it does, then I will not have time to go. But, I'm hopeful.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."