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The Almighty Buck The Internet Entertainment

Copyright and Webcomics - A New Trend? 89

Posted by CowboyNeal from the comics-want-to-be-free dept.
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.)"
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Copyright and Webcomics - A New Trend? More

Copyright and Webcomics - A New Trend?

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  • Not new. Old. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:28AM (#14060319) Homepage Journal
    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. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by msbsod ( 574856 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:41AM (#14060395)
      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. (Score:3, Informative)

        by \\ ( 118555 )
        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 publishing in general over at Warren Ellis's Engine forums.

        I could get links for all this, but I am far too lazy.

        The founder of Seven Seas apparently kept track of all the discussions and made a decision to do what he did, which would be great if it became
      • The distribution company owns the copyright since they paid money to produce it. In some senses, its a fore-hire work, with the actors and directors and crew as employees, where the company owns the product.

        • Re:Not new. Old. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by WNight ( 23683 )
          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 is worded this way, don't sign. You never need hosting or a printer badly enough to sign all your creative work away.
          • How about financial backing, promotion, and distribution?

            I'm not saying that the media empires aren't evil, just pointing out that the actual production isn't all that publishers bring to the table. This may be less true for web comics, but it is a similar situation to what is going on with the record labels, and TV/movie production companies.
            • Who pays for that, though? If the studio/distributor pays for the promotion it's one thing, but if they "arrange" for it, and back charge you against your earnings, then it's something very else. I'm not saying this happens in the webcomic industry, but it happens in the music industry...and any number of groups that didn't read and understand exactly what they were signing died because of it. You can't trust the general middle-man to give you an even approximately fair deal. Some may, but be skeptical
      • Hey, the other companies dealing with this kind of content all have corporate ethics. It is just that it does not really match the rest of the world.
      • Even if the idea is not new, it still requires courage to copy it.

        No longer a problem: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/1 8/0644240&from=rss [slashdot.org]

      • There is also a good chance that they came up with the idea themselves,

        Several decades too late for that. The phrase "creator owned" has been bouncing around the comics industry for decades, and has been going on rather visibly since the 1980s; there isn't anyone involved in comics publishing who isn't familiar with the idea and seen it in practice. For much of the 1990s the top-selling comic in North American (Spawn) was creator owned, a fact that its owner and his partners at Image made a lot of noise

    • Re:Not new. Old. (Score:4, Informative)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:43AM (#14060617) Journal
      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.

    • Re:Not new. Old. (Score:2, Informative)

      by jfortman ( 891800 )

      I guess I've grown up in the indy comic culture. Other than the huge audience Marvel and DC comics already have, I don't see a reason to join those companies. There are so many possibilities for indy publishing out there. Granted, distribution is a problem for paper comics, but this is the Internet. We have the distribution thing covered.

      My comic is 2 years old and has an international "distribution." My readership is roughly 400 and I've sold maybe 30 comics for actual money, which isn't a

  • Quick! (Score:3, Funny)

    by rincebrain ( 776480 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:31AM (#14060343) Homepage
    Nobody tell Scott Kurtz! We'll never hear the end of it!

  • "English-language manga" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:35AM (#14060363)
    Also known as a "comic"
    • Shush - you'll scare the fangirls away.
    • Also known as a "comic"

      Or graphic novel. It is just a name, but "manga" is indicitive of the style of the artwork and story. People have preconceived ideas about what the different terms mean:
      - comic: DC or Marvel style "fan boy" stories which are generally about good vs evil
      - comic-strip: short drawin story you read in the back of your newspaper
      - manga: Japanese style or influenced graphic-novels
      - BDs: French style hard-back cover graphic-novels
      - Graphic-Novel: the
    • In this context, "manga" refers to a style and publishing format. So it does make sense to distinguish these from just plain "comics".

  • Whats this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SafteyMan ( 860733 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:38AM (#14060380)
    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.
    • This has (or at least should have) nothing to do with any naive or good hearted attempt to give the artists a 'fair deal.' Rather, this is (should be) an economic gamble by the publisher, pure and simple. The publisher wants to attract the best talent to his small company, so he offers the talent a better agreement than the talent could get elsewhere.

      This is basic market economics at work here - supply and demand. Likewise, in the music industry, there is an overabundance of acts willing to sign on the

      • Likewise, in the music industry, there is an overabundance of acts willing to sign on the dotted line with record companies to contracts which many underinformed idiots on slashdot somehow believe to be "unfair to the artist."

        It's simply statistics; in a society of a few billion people it's easy to find a few dozen photogenic people per year (0.000001%) who will sign up. And yes, it is unfair, see this [arancidamoeba.com] and this [hmco.com]). For both the artists who are signed and the vast majority (99.9%+) who are not. The arts ind

  • As much as publishers do for artists.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Senes ( 928228 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:43AM (#14060406)
    This is great to hear. They don't even go around suing preteens and single parents. I wish everyone was this nice.
  • 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? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Friday November 18, 2005 @12:58AM (#14060465) Homepage
    What is the practical difference between selling the copyright and exclusively licensing?

    • Re:Is there really a difference? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:06AM (#14060494)
      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.
    • What ReformedExCon said, plus:

      The exclusive license will probably have a termination clause, after which all rights return to the owner. This would probably happen, for instance, if the site closed down.

      The exclusive license probably doesn't cover other media (e.g. novels or movies of the same story) thus allowing the owner to sell such rights independently.

      Exclusive licensing is definitely the better option for anyone who has it.
    • Giving up the copyright also means giving up control of the work, forever. Someone with an exclusive license to reproduce your work doesn't have the right to hire someone else to produce a sequel without your involvement.

  • Welcome to the 80s? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChaosDiscord ( 4913 ) * on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:02AM (#14060484) Homepage Journal
    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? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:45AM (#14060622) Homepage
      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.
    • Well the liberalization of copyright on comics started even before that, in 1896 when Outcault moved his comic "The Yellow Kid" from Pulitzer's New York World to Hearst's New York Journal. World tried to retain the rights on the comic and hired another artist to draw it.

      This lead to two versions of the comic in competing magazines. Lawsuits ensued, and the result was that Outcault retained the rights to the name of the comic (if not of the characters themselves), and the World's version was renamed to "Hoga

  • Popular Web Comics (Score:4, Informative)

    by Almighty Pallbearer ( 932080 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @01:14AM (#14060524)
    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?

  • The Wealth of Nations quote (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Muhammar ( 659468 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @02:25AM (#14060717)
    "The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed." Adam Smith 1776

  • Discipline Global Mobile does this for musicians (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eternal Vigilance ( 573501 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @02:43AM (#14060770)
    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.

  • Dammit! (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Harker ( 96598 )
    There is one, possibly two more online comics to add to my morning (well, afternoon) reading.

    I haven't yet gotten tot he point where Firefox will not be able to display all the tabs, but it's getting real close.

    No more, ok?

    H.
  • So now some artists can own the works that they create.

    It's rather sad that this is a radical new fringe idea, and that work for hire [wikipedia.org] is the norm in distributing creative arts.
    (I have no problems with my employer owning the code that I write during office hours. They hired me before I wrote any of it. And it's to their spec. )

  • Creator Owned Comics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Goo.cc ( 687626 ) * on Friday November 18, 2005 @07:15AM (#14061549)
    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.

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