Silver Age Charlton?

[bchat]

A correct registration is still needed for the automatic renewal until fairly recently.  And most stuff did have a correct registration even if it doesn't look like it- the THUNDER Agents being a case in point.  (I'm still not convinced they were ever correctly registered.  But my opinion isn't what pertains; it's the Judge's opinion.)

I don't know much about the THUNDER Agents, so I went to the net's best source for incorrect information, and saw this on Wikipedia:

In 1984, David M. Singer's Deluxe Comics began publishing a new series, Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, featuring some of the best artists of the era, including George Pérez, Dave Cockrum, Keith Giffen, Murphy Anderson, Steve Ditko, Rich Buckler, and Jerry Ordway. Singer claimed the group was in the public domain. A lawsuit by Carbonaro claimed otherwise. The lawsuit was eventually settled in US District Court in favor of Singer. stating Carbonaro failed to prove ownership of any copyrights or trademark in the characters, nor for that matter any protected rights at all by anyone. The characters were allowed to fall into the public domain. Deluxe announced its court victory in Comics Buyer's Guide, and in Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3 (November 1985). Deluxe Comics closed its doors in 1986, when several major distributors failed to pay sizeable past-due invoices.

and

In the early 2000s, DC Comics planned to release a new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series under license from Carbonaro. Work for about two issues of a new series was completed, but Carbonaro put a stop to it as it made radical alternations to the characters. DC failed to create a series in line with the original series and tone, but began publishing reprints of the original Tower series in their hardcover DC Archive Editions format in a total of six volumes.

Now, if I believe any of the above, it would seem that THUNDER Agents were considered Public Domain when Deluxe was publishing their series, but Carbonaro ... regained the rights? ... pretended to regain the rights?  ... when DC tried to do something about 20 years later.  If the books didn't carry a proper Copyright Notice in 1965, they should be (as I understand it) Public Domain.  So how is Carbonaro claiming ownership now?

[JVJ (RIP)]

As JohnC is so fond of saying, bchat,
Anybody can CLAIM ownership of anything. Seems that the courts (if one can believe Wikipedia [GRIN]) stated otherwise in 1985. Perhaps there are other factors in the CD TA non-start.

(|:{>

[OtherEric]

Well, it's the Carbonaro estate now, he passed away a few years ago.  I know there's a description of the situation in the Thunder Agents Companion of a few years ago, which is itself a expanded reprint of a issue of Comic Book Artist.

If I understand it correctly, Carbonaro was able to show a chain of ownership and demonstrate that at least the first Tower issue was copyrighted. (I know issue #1 has a copyright notice on the front cover.) Beyond that, I don't know other than I know wikipedia is either incorrect or Carbonaro was able to convince a LOT of people that he had triumphed in court.  I believe his estate owns the rights to the Deluxe issues now.

The first few issues of the Deluxe revival were interesting; certainly quite a bit better than Carbonaro's own efforts in my opinion.

Off on a total tangent:  I recall reading somewhere that there were stories from the Tower era that were only printed overseas; has anybody else ever heard of those or seen them?

[bchat]

Well, it's the Carbonaro estate now, he passed away a few years ago.  I know there's a description of the situation in the Thunder Agents Companion of a few years ago, which is itself a expanded reprint of a issue of Comic Book Artist.

If I understand it correctly, Carbonaro was able to show a chain of ownership and demonstrate that at least the first Tower issue was copyrighted. (I know issue #1 has a copyright notice on the front cover.) Beyond that, I don't know other than I know wikipedia is either incorrect or Carbonaro was able to convince a LOT of people that he had triumphed in court.  I believe his estate owns the rights to the Deluxe issues now.

Thanks for the info.  The ownership issue makes for an interesting story on its own.

The Copyright on the first issue's cover is easy to miss, but that's all Carbonaro would need to claim ownership of "the characters".  Everything published after that could be considered nothing more than a derivative work, whether those successive issues were Public Domain or not.

[John C]

Here's the THUNDER story as far as I've been able to piece it together from (scans of) the original books and (the database of) Copyright Office records...

The interiors of  the Tower THUNDER Agents comics have no copyright notices.

The first issues of each series DO have obscured, hard-to-read copyright notices on the covers.  That's technically permissible (today), as book-form works may print it on "either side of the front or back cover."  However, there are two problems.

First, they're obscure and hard to read, as mentioned.  With the exception of UNDERSEA Agent, which has the notice where you'd actually find it, the rest hide the notice within the art, in dark colors.  "The notice should be permanently legible to an ordinary user of the work under normal conditions of use and should not be concealed from view upon reasonable examination."  (NoMan #1 is another outlier:  It has a hand-written notice hidden in the art that I can't read.)

Second, for periodicals, the rule as of 1965 was, that the notice must be "either upon the title page or upon the first page of text of each separate number or under the title heading."  That's not the cover, which makes these notices invalid.  There's good reason for that, too:  A cover notice often claims copyright FOR the cover as a separate work.

This last has changed in the intervening years.  Front and back covers, inside and out, are currently valid places for a copyright notice.  However, they got it wrong on publication, and you can't get things back from the public domain.

So those were the '60s.  The original books, hands down, have no copyrights.  If Tower owned the copyright to anything in the entire series, it's the cover to UNDERSEA Agent #1.

Enter John Carbonaro (whose pasta sauce I love...), who "buys the rights."  Like everybody in the comic book industry, he had absolutely no idea what that means or what he bought, and assumed it involved exclusive rights to "characters," which really isn't a legally-defined concept.  His partner Singer actually did the research and determined that, no, there were no copyrights to own, so he split off.

Now, Carbonaro's interpretation of the copyright law is wrong, but understandable.  By 1980, the law had changed to allow copyright notices more globally, as I mention above.  As a complete novice, he naturally applied current law to old works and got the wrong answer.

Anyway, when Singer tried to publish his own series, Carbonaro tried to sue, but learned that you don't have the right to sue without a copyright registration.  Therefore, he registered those books with (bad) copyright notices.  If you look at the Library of Congress records, you'll see that THUNDER Agents #1 is registered, but not until September of 1984.  The rest of the registrations (minus NoMan #1, which I guess means that scribble wasn't a copyright notice after all) come in December.

From here, what I know only comes from secondary sources.  Allegedly, Carbonaro brought Singer to court, and the judge ruled from the bench (i.e., without bothering to go to trial) that the original books were in the public domain, and Carbonaro had no case.  Singer's announcement then caused a flurry of THUNDER appearances through the '80s, because, hey, public domain.

The case also caused Carbonaro to license the Agents to several small companies, hoping that the license agreements would bolster the view that he owned the properties.

Some time after that...I don't understand it at all, but Carbonaro apparently claimed that he petitioned the courts to "give him back" the copyrights, and allegedly succeeded because nobody contested it.  But that's complete nonsense, since there's (as I said) no provision for retrieving the copyright of a public domain work.  Otherwise, I'm sure somebody would have "re-copyrighted" the works of Shakespeare, by now.

However, since then, it looks like most of the industry has just played ball with Carbonaro, rather than worry about needing to fend off lawsuits from what seems to amount to an overly-posessive nut.  Now that he's passed away, though, we'll see what happens.  I can't imagine that his estate will be quite as obsessed with the characters.

[John C]

A correct registration is still needed for the automatic renewal until fairly recently.

This is something that confuses me, Eric, and I've gone back and forth with Ed Love on the topic a few times.  Do you have a reference for this?

As far as anybody's been able to find, you can't sue without a registration, but so far, the only suggestion that registration is "required" by the Copyright Office are ambiguously-phrased updates to the law that mention it being "no longer" required, implying that it was previously.

If there's somewhere that says this, that's a serious game-changer.  For example, Atlas/Seaboard books don't have any registrations, and their initial copyright terms would have otherwise expired quite some time ago.

[OtherEric]

Standard disclaimer:  I am not a Lawyer, and so on:

Items published through 1963 copyrighted and not renewed are public domain.
Items published through 1977 and not copyrighted are public domain.
Items past 1977 until March 1, 1989 MAY be public domain under specific conditions.
Items past March 1, 1989 are NOT public domain even if the creator wants them to be.

For more information:
http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/

[John C]

Ah, OK, Eric.  I see the disconnect.  There are three parts to copyright.

First, there's the notice.  "Copyright 1965 XYZ Corporation."  Without this, prior to (March of) 1989, if you didn't have this, you didn't have a copyright.  The exceptions and conditions are that you could fix the notice if you catch it within a period that grew over time to five years.  However, with small press publishers producing disposable entertainment, I don't find this particularly likely.

Second, there's the renewal.  Prior to 1992, if your first copyright term had expired (meaning you had published prior to 1964) and you didn't renew the copyright, then the work went into the public domain.  And, obviously, if the work wasn't under copyright, the copyright can't be renewed.

Third and last, there's the registration, which requires filling out a form, paying a fee, and depositing copies of your work with the Library of Congress for reference.  This was optional as far as I could find, except (as I mentioned) for vague, ambiguous language in recent versions of the law which imply that the option is new.  Regardless, registration gives you the right to sue over infringement during the registration period.

I suspect (and correct me if I'm wrong, here) that you're confusing the notice with the registration.  Automatically renewing a book with no notice would be creating a new copyright, which isn't acceptable.  However, I haven't seen any part of the code requiring registration for renewal...but it could just be that I haven't seen that piece, since I've never read any version from end to end, let alone every version.

Incidentally, this might be helpful to somebody.  It's a compiled version of each version of copyright law, so that you can find what the situation was at a particular point of publication or renewal:

http://law.copyrightdata.com/

[bbbrown]

Thank you got clearing that up for me Aussie.  Wonder if I read it some where else, incorrectly remembered the date or if it came from too many pain pills.

Fett, you fund it, I will make the time to run it as long as I can find some decent mod's to take care of the message end and some copyright expert to keep it legit.

Every one else, interesting reading.  Thank you.

[narfstar]

So would Atlas Seabold books be safe for another site to carry even though they carried a copyright notice but did not register?

[fett]

Fett, you fund it, I will make the time to run it as long as I can find some decent mod's to take care of the message end and some copyright expert to keep it legit.

Unscanned GA comics keeping me busy atm. As soon as we're done I'll get right on that.

[John C]

So would Atlas Seabold books be safe for another site to carry even though they carried a copyright notice but did not register?

Only for a very loose definition of "safe."  They're still under copyright, so doing so would still be infringing.  However, to stop you, the owner (whoever that may be) would need to register, and wouldn't be allowed to collect damages for the period when it wasn't registered.

Personally?  I wouldn't clear it.  Any day, the owner COULD register it, and, with market research in hand, claim that you've spoiled a million-dollar reprint sale or something along those lines that would be on damages going forward.

That's how I read it, at least, and I again emphasize that my legal training comes from having an occasional dinner with a friend who does contract law, to wit, none.  It's also possible that Eric is right, registration is needed for renewal, and I just haven't seen it.

Does anybody know who would own the Atlas/Seaboard books at this time?  I remember once hearing that heirs were difficult to find, but that may have just been generic uninformed rumor.  (Since it was short-lived and since hasn't done anything, I'm wondering if the current owner might be willing to sell it cheap, for subsequent release into the public domain.)

[OtherEric]

The question here is at what point did registering the book (rather than just having a correct copyright notice) stop being mandatory?  I know for a very long time registration was required; it didn't matter if you had the correct notice or not if you didn't follow through.

[John C]

I actually agreed with that until just a few days ago, actually.  I couldn't find a single statement one way or another in the law, but you do occasionally get things like the statement on joining the Berne treaty mentioning eliminating "formalities" like required registration and the 1976 law stating (for the first time) that registration MAY be made during the copyright term, which imply that, some time previously, registration was mandatory.

However, no matter how far I go back, I can't find anything that says registration secures your copyright.  At most, registration gave (and still gives) you documentation when you sue for damages.

In fact, the 1909 law (which I looked at just now to see what it had to say) has S9, "That any person...may secure copyright for his work by publication thereof with the notice of copyright..." and S10, "That such person may obtain registration of his claim to copyright..."  So the earliest version of the Copyright Act explicitly makes registration optional for documentation purposes, rather than a stipulation for copyright.

As of 1965 (now that I know the key word "secure" is useful here!), the law says very much the same thing, just with better punctuation and as S10 and S11.  Same with 1973 (relevant to Seaboard).  S411 of the 1978 law says outright that, "no action for infringement of the copyright in any work shall be instituted until registration of the copyright claim has been made," which does appear to be the primary use.

I'm still looking to see if I can find a mention of registration with respect to renewal, but that doesn't look promising, either.  In the 1909 version, S23 says that the copyright owner can be a person, an anonymous person, or an employer.  Renewal is available to those who "duly registered therein within one year prior to the expiration of the original term of copyright."  Said renewal can be made by the author (or, presumably, the employer, though that's absent from the text), the widow/widower, children, executor, or next of kin, in that order of availability.  Lastly, if no renewal is filed, then the copyright expires at the end of the first term.

That said, I could be wrong.  I haven't authenticated the text of the laws at the site I'm reading, nor am I sure there aren't other clauses that override it.  So if anybody has better information (or even, y'know, "worse" information that we don't already have), I'm absolutely all ears.

For example, on another page on the same site I've been using:

http://chart.copyrightdata.com

Under the question, "Was the work registered in the name of the true owner?" the "No" answer says, "Prior to 1978, accurate registration was required to secure a copyright after publication.  Furthermore, filing was required to be prompt."  B-but...WHERE?  Where was it required!?  If it's not in the law text, then that's not right, is it?

[narfstar]

So it seems that in whichever text you follow there must have been a registration to allow damage suits. So the owners of Seabold copyrights could issue a cease and desist but not sue for damages? Did Charlton ever register even after proper notice posting?