Copyright in Comics Characters

Here's another Seventh Circuit copyright decision from Judge Posner: Gaiman v. McFarlane. At issue is the ownership of copyrights in comic book characters, particularly Count Nicholas Cagliostro, Medieval Spawn and Angela introduced in a Spawn comic book written by Gaiman and illustrated by series creator McFarlane. This is a very concise and well-written ruling, so I recommend reading the entire decision yourself (and this is why I'm not summarizing it. Really.)

Joe Gratz: Gaiman Wins

Even if the contribution is not itself copyrightable, the contributor is a co-author if the joint work would lose its copyrightability absent the contribution in question. This makes the present case come out the right way (Count Cogliostro ends up being jointly owned by Gaiman and McFarlaine), and makes the important co-authorship precedents come out the right way too.

Neil Gaiman: Last Legal Post for a long time

My own hopes for all this are that we've helped clarify copyright law in favour of creators... and helped to protect authors and artists and creators from unscrupulous publishers up the line.

Scrivener's Error: Character Defects: "On the whole, this is a victory for authors' rights, even if it does contain a small potential landmine."

(via How Appealing, of course)