Digital Comic Museum
DCM Download Site => What you can upload => Topic started by: freddyfly on September 29, 2015, 10:02:49 PM
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Hi,
For the Dell series The Funnies, the main page says:
"The presence of ERB's John Carter on Mars means we can't share any beyond the first 29 issues. Sorry."
So... like Famous Funnies with Buck Rogers removed, can we upload issues beyond #29 with Mr. Carter removed?
Also... the last issue Carter issue was #56. #59 is already on the site, so it looks like we can upload #57 & up!
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There's several others that give me pause Len.
For sure any Dick Tracy would have to be removed as well.
Please hold off until hopefully JohnC can comment.
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My concern with "famous" characters has nothing to do with their fame. It's the fact that stories that are adaptations still have copyrights involved in the stories, because they're derived works from an original. While it's always legal to post content that lapsed into the public domain, even if it's a derived work (like movies based on books), there's a greater possibility that the story has its own copyright, independent of the book, which is a search by owner and so much more difficult.
John Carter strikes me as a highly unlikely case, since the books that are still under copyright (and so could drive some company to decide it's worth taking the issue to court) are so much less popular than the early novels that are in the public domain, that I can't imagine there being a problem.
Well, unless they're newspaper strip reprints. Remember, each strip has its own copyright to check, possibly under different names, which is the ugliest search around...
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Given ERB Inc.'s desperate campaign to pump life back into its secondary characters (online comics, foreign animation deals, collectors' editions, etc.), you can bet they'll clamp down on anything that challenges their total control--even if an item may legitimately have slipped into public domain. It's not worth it unless you have (or are) an expensive lawyer who's willing to toss stones at Goliath.