3 ms·

Honestly I don't think it will change anything. I doubt anyone will touch it without a contract with DC. Public domain is not even recognized in every country

Honestly I don't think it will change anything. I doubt anyone will touch it without a contract with DC. Public domain is not even recognized in every country which mean that international commercialization of any derivative work would be complicated or even impossible. Even worse, in this case Bill Willingham do not even have contract right to republish Fables. He cannot republish it and add an anti-copyright-notice to it. According to my short research it seems to be a requirement to waive copyright and put something in the public domain according to the Bern Convention. I doubt a blog post is enough, at least internationally. I won't expect to see any movie of Fables without DC permission. Feel free to chime in and correct me if you are an international copyright laws expert.

esrauch 3y ago
I've been advised that in the US it's not possible to declare something public domain, that the closest thing is CC0 or a similar license. But surely if he doesn't have the right to give specific licenses to individuals he doesn't have the right to CC0 license it either. Based on what I understand, DC will be able to win this that he can't actually do this.
- kibwen 3y ago
  The other way around. The US has a public domain, and in many other countries CC0 is the best you can do.
- voxic11 3y ago
  Some countries like Germany and Japan don't recognize public domain dedication. But afaik the United States does. There is one oddity in the US which is that Section 203 of the Copyright Act grants the author of a work the right to cancel "the exclusive or nonexclusive grant of a transfer or license of copyright or of any right under a copyright" up to thirty-five years after the grant or transfer occurred (only applicable to works not created "for hire"). So you could argue under that until 35 years have elapsed the work isn't truly in the public domain because the original author of the work has the statutory right to reclaim its copyright. That said, could the author here have used Section 203 to revoke DC's license? I see section 203 requires that "Notices of termination may be served no earlier than 25 years after the execution of the grant or, if the grant covers the right of publication, no earlier than 30 years after the execution of the grant or 25 years after publication under the grant (whichever comes first)." So maybe the author could have waited a few more years and done that?
- starkparker 3y ago
  Since Wikipedia deals quite often with licensing and public-domain works, there's a reasonably relevant summary at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain.
kmeisthax 3y ago
I'm not entirely sure you need to republish a work in order to disclaim copyright on it. The only thing I'm aware of in US law is that you have to make some kind of 'overt act', which just means you have to actually intend to make something public domain. I think posting two Substack posts detailing contractual breaches and bad faith at DC as motivation qualifies. Germany and Japan don't recognize public domain dedications in the law. However, this isn't a German or Japanese creator we're talking about - Bill Willingham is American. And generally speaking, the Berne Convention is just a promise to treat other countries' copyrights the same as your country would, not an obligation to provide more copyright to foreign works than domestic ones[0]. I doubt Germany is going to ultimately enforce copyright that has already evaporated in America, especially on behalf of DC, a party that doesn't actually own the copyright in question and only has an exclusive license. What's really going to complicate this is the nature of the agreement between Bill and DC. DC could argue that an exclusive license is equivalent to copyright transfer. Copyright is corporate Calvinball, so we could see American courts trying to roll back the public domain dedication purely for the sake of submission to monied interests. I could see all sorts of stupid arguments being adopted by judges that want to see DC win and artists lose: - Well actually, he was trying to revert rights from DC by making his work public domain, but he didn't follow the notice period requirements, so the dedication is null and void - Well actually, the publishing agreement constitutes an effective copyright transfer, so he's just releasing DC of their obligations to him, so DC now owns Fables in perpetuity - Well actually, Bill Willingham didn't draw the art[1], so you can't put Fables on Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, or Wikimedia Commons, all you can do is have all the male characters in your folklore be one man named 'Jack' and nothing more As far as I'm aware, "artist burns down the copyright on their work to moot a publishing agreement" is uncharted legal territory. How any of these arguments would fare would depend on the exact text of the DC Comics publishing agreement Bill signed, which isn't public, and Bill probably can't proactively publish it. If he can, he should. Otherwise you'd only learn how much he can actually disclaim iff you get sued by DC and are able to bring the contract into the scope of discovery, which isn't exactly guaranteed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term [1] Copyright is not only viral, but also leprotic: every new instance of creativity accrues a separate copyright on that part of the work that is owned by that creator insamuch as it can be separated from the whole. This is why the GPL needs to have a copyleft clause.

esrauch 3y ago

I've been advised that in the US it's not possible to declare something public domain, that the closest thing is CC0 or a similar license. But surely if he doesn't have the right to give specific licenses to individuals he doesn't have the right to CC0 license it either. Based on what I understand, DC will be able to win this that he can't actually do this.

kibwen 3y ago
The other way around. The US has a public domain, and in many other countries CC0 is the best you can do.
voxic11 3y ago
Some countries like Germany and Japan don't recognize public domain dedication. But afaik the United States does. There is one oddity in the US which is that Section 203 of the Copyright Act grants the author of a work the right to cancel "the exclusive or nonexclusive grant of a transfer or license of copyright or of any right under a copyright" up to thirty-five years after the grant or transfer occurred (only applicable to works not created "for hire"). So you could argue under that until 35 years have elapsed the work isn't truly in the public domain because the original author of the work has the statutory right to reclaim its copyright. That said, could the author here have used Section 203 to revoke DC's license? I see section 203 requires that "Notices of termination may be served no earlier than 25 years after the execution of the grant or, if the grant covers the right of publication, no earlier than 30 years after the execution of the grant or 25 years after publication under the grant (whichever comes first)." So maybe the author could have waited a few more years and done that?
starkparker 3y ago
Since Wikipedia deals quite often with licensing and public-domain works, there's a reasonably relevant summary at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain.

kmeisthax 3y ago

I'm not entirely sure you need to republish a work in order to disclaim copyright on it. The only thing I'm aware of in US law is that you have to make some kind of 'overt act', which just means you have to actually intend to make something public domain. I think posting two Substack posts detailing contractual breaches and bad faith at DC as motivation qualifies. Germany and Japan don't recognize public domain dedications in the law. However, this isn't a German or Japanese creator we're talking about - Bill Willingham is American. And generally speaking, the Berne Convention is just a promise to treat other countries' copyrights the same as your country would, not an obligation to provide more copyright to foreign works than domestic ones[0]. I doubt Germany is going to ultimately enforce copyright that has already evaporated in America, especially on behalf of DC, a party that doesn't actually own the copyright in question and only has an exclusive license. What's really going to complicate this is the nature of the agreement between Bill and DC. DC could argue that an exclusive license is equivalent to copyright transfer. Copyright is corporate Calvinball, so we could see American courts trying to roll back the public domain dedication purely for the sake of submission to monied interests. I could see all sorts of stupid arguments being adopted by judges that want to see DC win and artists lose: - Well actually, he was trying to revert rights from DC by making his work public domain, but he didn't follow the notice period requirements, so the dedication is null and void - Well actually, the publishing agreement constitutes an effective copyright transfer, so he's just releasing DC of their obligations to him, so DC now owns Fables in perpetuity - Well actually, Bill Willingham didn't draw the art[1], so you can't put Fables on Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, or Wikimedia Commons, all you can do is have all the male characters in your folklore be one man named 'Jack' and nothing more As far as I'm aware, "artist burns down the copyright on their work to moot a publishing agreement" is uncharted legal territory. How any of these arguments would fare would depend on the exact text of the DC Comics publishing agreement Bill signed, which isn't public, and Bill probably can't proactively publish it. If he can, he should. Otherwise you'd only learn how much he can actually disclaim iff you get sued by DC and are able to bring the contract into the scope of discovery, which isn't exactly guaranteed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term [1] Copyright is not only viral, but also leprotic: every new instance of creativity accrues a separate copyright on that part of the work that is owned by that creator insamuch as it can be separated from the whole. This is why the GPL needs to have a copyleft clause.