DCM Download Site > What you can upload
Publishers and Characters NOT to be uploaded to DCM
RedMask:
Hi,
New member, long-time comic collector... ( => nearly 30 years now!)
Like to add one more category that probably SHOULD NOT be uploaded at all ---
any comic restoration by Marvel or DC, whether it's currently copyrighted material with active characters (still in licensed use) or comics that are technically PD but use copyrighted/trademarked characters.
This includes Masterworks, Archives series, and other reprint series like DC Comics Library Presents.
None of us should presume that DC's restorations of Quality Comics like Plastic Man would be uploadable... Yes, the original comics may be PD but don't presume that this gives you license to copy and upload the Archives restorations.
Uh-uh. Technically, when they (the current character owners) do a new release that's restored (recoloring, reinking, relettering, etc.) that could be counted as a new copyrighted edition...
Yes, the original stories are in PD-land and we can have distributing those but be smart and DON'T presume that PD extends to new/restored editions of said-comics.
Yes, DC/Marvel may not be able to do much about an ORIGINAL scan/photographed comic but don't be putting up restorations and risking the wrath of company lawyers, either!
***********
Putting up Spirit comics from Police Comics may be somewhat questionable, too.
I believe Will Eisner maintained the copyright on this character and may have still had the copyrights to the original newspaper strips through the end of his life. How this affects the Police Comics reprints, I don't know.
The Quality Spirit editions might be in legal limbo-land, maybe not... Eisner did license the character to Quality (I think). He maintained his ownership of the Spirit character long after he sold out interests in most of his other creations (ex: Blackhawks).
Again, maybe the original editions do not fall under a "be-careful rule" but for gods' sakes DON'T post the Archives' reprint restorations!
Yes, DC did the full-color/full-run reprints BUT the character is still owned by Will Eisner's Estate and is LICENSED to DC. I presume the restored materials for the Archives run are probably owned by the Eisner Estate, too, the same as the Marvel Star Wars comics are Lucasfilm property.
Repeat: DC does NOT own The Spirit.
I'm pretty sure Eisner's estate is vigilant and probably would sue if they came across an abuse of the copyright...
I don't mean to be a downer on my first day here,
But I just wanted to add some thoughts and observations that could save a lot of people and this digital repository some pain in the future...
GeorgeC
P.S. -- Now that this commentary is out of the way, can't wait to download and sample some good Golden Age adventures!
Huge fan of both Plastic Man and Captain Marvel in addition to The Spirit.
As for still copyright-protected comics are concerned, I prefer Golden Age Batman to Superman but like the JSA, original GL, and Flash as well.
Golden Age Wonder Woman is weird to me but most of the JSA character stories are at least interesting to me.
Golden Age Superman -- don't like those older comics so much but I love the Fleischer animated shorts, the radio series, and the few newspaper strip reprints that DC/Kitchen Sink Press did a few years back. Batman comics I've felt were more interesting in the 1940s and early 1950s than the Action Ace.
As far as Golden Age Marvel/Timely is concerned, I've really only enjoyed Captain America so much... Frankly I haven't read a lot of the other Golden Age Marvel comics (just too expensive to buy all the reprints) but from what I've sampled at least the early Cap stories (Simon-Kirby run) in his own series seemed crafted a bit more professionally than most of the early Torch/Sub-Mariner stories. Can't say much about the other Timely characters -- I think the more memorable characters have lasted to this day in print!
John C:
George, reprints go without saying, though it's dicey and we mostly reject them on principle and aesthetics, rather than legal grounding. While the UK does actually have a copyright class for reproduction, the US has generally denied protection to anything that merely involves labor. And a good argument can be made that restoring a comic at most involves tracing lines and matching colors. No creativity, no protection.
That hasn't ever been tested in court, to my knowledge (not that I'm a lawyer or anything), and not that we WANT the reprints (which often look shoddy), but strictly going by the letter of the law, a decision could go either way. The real problem with reprints is that we can't guarantee that it's ONLY a reprint without access to the original. Adjust the language or the shapes of the panels, and now there's a stronger argument for creativity.
As for the Spirit, nobody has yet to find any copyrights on the material. If you think we should be looking somewhere else, though, rather than the usual, "Eisner was a good businessman so he must have secured copyrights" hypothesis, we'll be glad to investigate.
Ugly:
>Hi Ugly,
>We would be interested to hear what you had.
>
>PS, remember if you see a published date inside your comic of post 1959 we also cannot use them on the site.
OK that answers that. :( Richie Rich and Timmy Time was dated September 1977. I really really liked that comic and made an effort to scan it as my first attempt at a comic. ;D
But you're stating it's too recent despite it being an oddity. The only other one I tried scanning was Sad Sack #4 from March 1950. It's most likely the oldest comic I have. :o
A 36 page issue came out to about 95 megs when made into a .cbr file. ::) Because I have a low end printer/scanner it meant doing one page at a time, rotating the even numbered pages so they were all right side up. But I used a 1200 dpi setting. What do most people use when they scan comics?
:-/
Yoc:
I don't believe Sad Sack is in the public domain Ugly. Sorry.
Most scan between 150 and 300 dpi. We have an upper total file size limit of about 170mb.
Please read the FAQ and the topic on How to Upload to DCM here -
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/forum/index.php/topic,1882.0.html
When in doubt about scanning something try checking the site if any other issues are already here or asking about it in the forum here first. We might save you time if your goal is sharing on DCM.
Take care,
-Yoc
Ger Apeldoorn:
--- Quote from: Yoc on December 31, 2011, 10:20:47 AM ---Hi Ger,
Great to see you here, fellow member of DocV's T-A group.
Most PRIZE books are allowed with some exceptions we try to list in their section-
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=241
--- End quote ---
Well, I will try and upload as many prize books as necessary. This will take a while, so I will claim them one by one. I addition to Headlines and JTTG's, I have loads of Young Love and Young Romance, Western Love 2/5 (doubles, which I may send to Tilli), Real West Romances (doubles again), Prize Comics Western, Wonderland and more...
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