Oh the Lawsuits You'll Prompt!

An update courtesy of Johanna Draper Carlson on the ongoing infringement suit brought by Dr. Seuss's estate against Comicmix, which ran a Kickstarter to fund a book called "Oh The Places You'll Boldly Go," based on the Seuss piece of nearly the same title and Star Trek.

This illustration is from the complaint, which goes into a great deal more detail on why they feel ripped off rather than satirized.

Where to begin? Well, with the fact that I am not a lawyer and nothing I say has any force in law and so forth and so on.

And that I'm in favor of free expression and, in particular, of the right to satirize and to create parodies.

But, then again, I'm in favor of protecting intellectual property, and, while -- as noted here quite recently -- I'm deeply against the outrageous extension of copyright under the Sonny Bono Law, "Oh The Places You'll Go" is less than 20 years old, only 27 years old, and, while the author/illustrator is dead, I don't think copyright protection should be. Yet.

The court has recently ruled against Seuss in saying that, while you can trademark, for instance, the Cat in the Hat's hat, you can't trademark an entire artistic style.

But I think Comicmix is making too much of this ruling, because all it does is shift the argument to the copyright status of the content rather than the artistic style of the rendering.

This means that you can have interchangeable artists working on comic books, which is great for Marvel and DC, though I'm not sure it's much of a victory for the interchangeable artists.

When I began writing children's stories to be serialized in newspapers, I got it down in writing that I was the copyright holder and they were not "works for hire." But that's hardly an option open to everyone.

Marvel and DC own the rights to the various muscular Spandex characters whom I would call "superheroes" except that the term "superhero" is trademarked and, no, I'm not joking.

Still, the fact that they can assign artists to draw their characters doesn't mean you can draw and sell them yourself.

Their comic books are ongoing publishing ventures, no different than the Harry Potter series, and, while JK Rowling has been very generous and openhanded in allow fan-fiction using the characters and settings of her books, she wouldn't have to be. 

But I also think she's bright enough to see that amateur fan-fic is a way to build audience and loyalty. Try publishing your story of Harry, Hermione and Ron as a freestanding for-sale book and I suspect there'd be a cease-and-desist in your mailbox by Monday.

And, similarly, there was the Dysfunctional Family Circus, a website in which real Family Circus cartoons had new, mostly vulgar, captions swapped in.

Bil Keane apparently thought it was funny as long as it was an odd little corner of the web, but, once it became viral, he and his syndicate asked that it be shut down.

But, again, that was their choice. They could have shut it down from the get-go, because it was entirely based on a single source of copyrighted material.

By contrast, I think the parody/satire defense will almost always win out in the case of occasional pieces.

For instance, Ruben Bolling's current "Tom the Dancing Bug" cartoon is a parody of "Where the Wild Things Are," but it's not a book or even a poster, but, rather a single installment of his ongoing, well-established cartoon.

He also has not made a serious attempt to copy Maurice Sendak's artistic style, and, content aside, it can't be argued that he's trying to fool anyone into thinking Sendak drew this, particularly since he includes a disclaimer.

Similarly, while Adam Zyglis somewhat -- but not slavishly -- copies Schulz's style for his current piece, again, it's one entry in his regular series of cartoons.

And, no, I'm not a lawyer. But I am a writer, and, speaking artistically, I would suggest that the creative success of both Bolling's and Zyglis's pieces lies chiefly in the fact that they are one-offs, such that part of their impact is the surprise.

That POW-BAM-GONE impact is key to good parody.

Timing is also critical.

Shortly after I graduated from college, I wrote a parody of the extremely popular and extremely sappy "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull," which, rather than being about a seagull who wanted to be a great flyer, was about Jonathan Livingston Beagle, a dog whose ambition was to lift his leg better and farther than any dog had.

I sent it off to Harper's and got a nice note back from Lewis Lapham saying that he thought it was very clever but that it didn't sustain for however long it was -- I think maybe four pages or so.

At 500 words, it would have been funny, and, for the first 500 words, it was.

And then it became tedious.

It's hard to pull off a full-length parody, and even "Bored of the Rings" is considerably shorter than its source material.

Which is why those great Jack Davis parodies in classic Mad Magazine were short: Get in, get the laff, get the hell out.

This thing looks long and I wonder if even Trekkie obsession is enough to sustain it?

That is a factor that shouldn't come into the legal discussion of this piece except to the extent of asking "Why are we continuing to shovel money out the door to lawyers?"

They may have raised $30K on Kickstarter, but how much are they spending on it now, before the presses even run? I suppose a victory would create curiosity, but I suspect the principle will have to be more important than the profit.

Still, freedom of expression should be defended, and, who knows?

Anti-Monopoly eventually won and Air Pirates lost and if you think it's worth doing in the first place, you should probably ride that sucker until it either soars into orbit or corkscrews into the ground.

But bear in mind that Larry Flynt was going for a quick laugh and a political point.

He wasn't trying to sell an apéritif.

 

Comments

[Kurt]

"Oh, the Places You'll Go!" is 27 years old. Did you do that thing that old people like us do where we think 1990 is 17 years ago instead of 27?

I recall that Ruben Bolling has a day job as an attorney, so he probably knows exactly where to draw the line between parody and copyright infringement.

I think the Comicmix parody should be allowed, although they could have been a little less lazy and altered the backgrounds in the artwork a bit more. They look less "inspired by" and more "scanned directly from the book."

[Mike Peterson]

Oops. Yeah, I'm trying to stay young. Corrected, thanks, and still within what I think is fair copyright timing.

I'd also agree that if they had used more imagination and less photocopying, they'd be on stronger ground, though, again, I kind of question whether it will sustain for its full length. (Probably not an issue for Trekkies)

[sean martin]

The Seuss thing isnt a parody, sorry. It's just a lame little attempt at getting some attention and doing it in the Seuss style. If I were the Seuss estate, I'd be after them as well.

I know, parody and satire can be tricky things. But this isnt even trying all that hard.

[Hank G.]

Still, the fact that they can assign artists to draw their characters doesn't mean you can draw and sell them yourself.

Mike, what do you make of this?

http://jl8comic.tumblr.com/post/13372482444/jl8-1-by-yale-stewart-based-on-characters-in-dc

I actually like this quite a lot, and think that it is quite clever, but it seems to be a blatant rip-off of DC’s intellectual property.

The artist has been doing it for six years now, so either he is below DC’s radar, or they are tacitly approving. Is “they haven’t complained in over six years” a defense if they eventually come after him?

What they ought to do, IMO, is hire him to put out a JL8 comic.

[Mike Peterson]

I think I agree with you across the board -- it's a rip off and they ought to hire him.

They must know he's around. I suspect if he began making serious $$$, they'd do something.

And if they ever decided that comics were something kids liked -- never mind the audience Raina Telgemeier et al have amassed -- they might decide to add a gentle kiddie version. But they seem pretty fixated on their core group.

[parnellnelson]

In a triumph of pure dumb luck I was in the Last Gasp offices in 1972 showing some cartoons to Gary Arlington when Kim Deitch walked in and said, "We lost." Gary reached over and took the last copies of Air Pirates off the display rack, handed them to me and said, "Here kid, you might as well take these, Disney's just gonna burn 'em anyway."
I'd love to be back there again...or at least have somebody call me "kid" again.
And Happy Shortest Day of the Year to all y'all.

[Mary McNeil]

Question : How does your buddy Ces get away with his f**king parodies of Peanuts all the time ? (He doesn't use the asterisks.)

[Mike Peterson]

You said the magic word: They're parodies.

Also, Jeanne Schulz has a sense of humor and Ces isn't making a lot of money -- perhaps none -- from them.

[Mary McNeil]

Jean Schulz may have a sense of humor, but given how her husband insisted on including Linus' soliloquy in A Charlie Brown Christmas, I question how tolerant he'd be of all the f**king being infused into the parodies. Unless it's the use of that word alone that makes them funny ?