Copyright and Webcomics - A New Trend?

Selanit writes "There's an article at Publisher's Weekly reporting that Seven Seas Entertainment, an up-and-coming publisher of English-language manga, has adopted a new copyright policy. When contracting to publish webcomics like Earthsong or Inverloch, they offer the artists full control over the copyright. This is highly unusual in comics - most companies use joint-ownership arrangements. The founder of Seven Seas asked himself 'For properties that were already written and illustrated without any input from Seven Seas, how could I justify asking for partial ownership?' And apparently, the answer led him to abandon that practice. It'll be interesting to see if this helps his company attract new talent. (There's a previous Slashdot article that may be relevant.)"

Not new. Old.

Comic Genesis [comicgenesis.com] (formerly KeenSpace) has been doing that since 2000. It doesn't want to own the copyright to the comic (and it says so in the TOS). It just wants to host the comic, and give some services (like automated updates, promotion and forums).

But then, I'm the admin behind CG, and my comic is proudly on their servers.

Re:Not new. Old.

Even if the idea is not new, it still requires courage to copy it. There is also a good chance that they came up with the idea themselves, There are so few companies in the entertainment industry with corporate ethics. Anybody who ever looked at a DVD and wonders why only the distributing company is listed as copyright owner may soon figure out that there is something badly wrong with the entertainment industry. To pursue a business model which does not suck [mpaa.org] every cent out of an artist can be a risky attempt. I like to compliment Comic Genesis and Seven Seas Entertainment!

Re:Not new. Old.

This current thing came about when, recently, people signed to Tokyopop contracts starting comparing them. There's been a lot of discussion recently about this, about Dave Sim's attempt to negotiate with DC over art for a three page Fables story, and self

Re:Not new. Old.

Many distribution contracts says that they own the work, and this may have made sense in the old days when printing/etc was new, but now it's clearly the author/artist who makes the book what it is, the publisher is merely the middle-man.

If your contract i

Re:Not new. Old.

Comic Genesis really isn't really comparable. Now Keenspot is a bit more comparable (as it does print collection books) but only mildly so. The difference is, (AFAIK) Seven Seas isn't a webcomic distributor (like Keenspot, Modern Tales and Comic Genesis). It's a comic distributor, that happens to distribute some webcomics. Comic Genesis has more in common with Geocities then it does with Seven Seas.

Not that I'm knocking Comic Genesis. I have many webcomics I read hosted with them, and am active (for me anyway) on their message boards.

Having said that, Str's right, this isn't anything new. Plan Nine Publishing [plan9publishing.com] does publish webcomics (and isn't a host or a print on demand system, although I believe it does utilize print on demand, it doesn't accept anyone) and doesn't claim ownership on the work.

Quick!

Nobody tell Scott Kurtz! We'll never hear the end of it!

Re:Quick!

The horror! The horror!

Oops. Wrong Mr. Kurtz...

"English-language manga"

Also known as a "comic"

Whats this?

Wow, a story about someone that actually cares about artists and giving them a "fair deal"? One can only hope that this type of thing leaks into other companies and media.

As much as publishers do for artists....

This is great to hear. They don't even go around suing preteens and single parents. I wish everyone was this nice.

Re:As much as publishers do for artists....

It's Just Not Good Business If You're Not Suing Grannies (tm)

Inverloch is cool.

Altho I didn't like the looks of Acheron at first (he looked too much like a "cub", it's hard to identify that as a menacing monster which he was supposed to be), the story is very interesting.

I only wish the pages were done more often :)

Is there really a difference?

What is the practical difference between selling the copyright and exclusively licensing?

Re:Is there really a difference?

Exclusive licensing does not necessarily give the licensee the right to sublicense the work. Transfer of copyright means the transfer of all rights to the one on the receiving end.

Not to mention that exclusive licensing may also be limited to a particular country, thus allowing a copyright holder to sign exclusive licensing agreements with multiple partners in different countries and expanding royalty income while reducing his legal liability. The deals may (and often do) require that the licensee prosecute any unlicensed distribution within the covered country.

Welcome to the 80s?

Way to get press coverage for implementing an idea from the 70s. The big fight over creator owned comics happened years ago. While many mainstream comics remain owned by the publishers and not the creators, there are many comic properties owned by their creators now. There are publishers founded on the idea. David Sim's Cerebus is perhaps the most famous; he was one of the early people to make a big ruckus over the importance of creator owned comics.

Re:Welcome to the 80s?

Actually, these days Image Comics is perhaps the most famous. Founded by a group of artists who largely made their names on company-owned Marvel comics, including Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri, Jim Valentino, Jim Lee, and Rob Liefeld, Image published a number of top-selling creator-owned properties, including WildCATS, Spawn, the Savage Dragon, Youngblood, etc.

These days Image publishes a number of less-mainstream titles, but the policy is still that the creators own the copyrights to their works. Three current favorites, off the top of my head, are Godland, Sea of Red and the Walking Dead.

Like the parent says, however, Image was hardly the first. Not including the undergrounds, Marvel was one of the first companies to experiment with giving creators ownership of their titles, with the Epic line in the 80s.

And, of course, while it's laudable for a publisher to give authors control over the works they create, tis is nothing new for the mainstream publishing industry. If you write a novel, you don't typically have to sign over the copyright to your publisher. The really amazing thing is not that this company wants to give comics artists control over their work, but that in 2005 the comics industry is still so backwards that this should even be news.

Popular Web Comics

So we have http://www.penny-arcade.com/ [penny-arcade.com], http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/ [ctrlaltdel-online.com], http://www.officialwdc.com/comic.php [officialwdc.com], http://www.pvponline.com/ [pvponline.com], http://ww.somethingpositive.net/ [somethingpositive.net] and http://www.megatokyo.com/ [megatokyo.com]. Any other favorites?

Re:Popular Web Comics

http://www.scarygoround.com/ [scarygoround.com]
http://www.wigu.com/ [wigu.com]
http://www.wigu.com/overcompensating [wigu.com]
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/ [dieselsweeties.com]
http://www.samandfuzzy.com/ [samandfuzzy.com]
http://www.hingos.com/patches [hingos.com]
http://www.orneryboy.com/ [orneryboy.com]

Re:Popular Web Comics

Here's a couple I enjoy. [comic-nation.com]

One of the newer ones I especially enjoy is Where Am I Now? [whereaminow.org]

Re:Popular Web Comics

does Broken Saints [slashdot.org] count as a comic?

It's awsome.

The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Perhaps not widely popular, but one of my favorites. http://www.cheston.com/pbf/archive.html [cheston.com]

Re:Popular Web Comics

This is /., friend. http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/ [geekz.co.uk]

The Wealth of Nations quote

"The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed." Adam Smith 1776

Discipline Global Mobile does this for musicians

Discipline Global Mobile, the record label founded by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, has this same policy for the music it publishes - the copyright remains with the artist ("with whom it rightfully resides" IIRC).

You can read more about the admirable aims of DGM here [discipline...mobile.com].

Here's an excerpt:


The business aims of Discipline Global Mobile are....

* to help music come into the world which would otherwise be unlikely to do so, or under conditions prejudicial to the music and/or musicians.

* to operate in the market place, while being free of the values of the market place.

* to help the artists and staff of DGM achieve what they wish for themselves.

* to find its audience.

* to be a model of ethical business in an industry founded on exploitation, oiled by deceit, riven with theft and fuelled by greed.


There's also more of Fripp's sardonic sense of humor, and one of the better explanations of "standard practice" record label-artist contracts (not for the squeamish!).

Perhaps the rate of adoption of this sort of ethical business model by the music industry will at least serve as a lower bound for those wondering about the rate of adoption in other media.

Creator Owned Comics

There is nothing new about any of this, except Webcomics are involved.

Creators have had an avenue to retain copyights of their material since Eclipse Comics And Pacific Comics came on the scene in the early 80s, and this continues today with the smaller publishers, such as Dark Horse, IDW, Avatar, and Image. And although it is a tiny part of their output, even Marvel And DC do some creator owned publishing.

I still read and collect comics, but I personally perfer to buy creator owned works when possible.