Quick question

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

In dealing with Golden Age stuff, where the stories are short and the page count is high, how many pages of a comic can we post? Let's say the story is 8 pages long, and the comic is, say, 60 or so?

Hell, or Seuss? You decide.

Comments

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

Seriously, I have enough stuff to do a good series, but I don't know how close to 'legality' for purposes of the journal it is. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it's... probably public domain by now.

GOLDEN AGE

[peur_evol.insanejournal.com]

The longest full story I've ever posted here was 8 pages long, but i've seen some golden age Batman that were up to 12 pages.
The mods seem really nice here, as far as I can tell, it would be up to your own discretion.
If you have proof that it's actually public domain, then post as much as you want (it's legal); if you're not sure, condense as you see fit.

Overall, if you're really not sure, contact a mod.
Hope this helps.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Copyright is life of the author + 70 years. For it to be public domain, the author would have had to have died in 1968.

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

Only mostly true. If the copyright had not entered the public domain by 1978, then what you're saying is more or less true.
If, however, before 1978, then, if it was published before 1923, it is public domain. If, however, it was published _after_ 1923, but _before_ 1978, and a renewal notice had not been filed with the US Copyright Office in the 28th year of its copyright, before the need was removed in '92, it is public domain. Thus, works whose copyright had not been renewed, and were published before 1964, are in the public domain.

(Of course, there's weird areas, like how Night of the Living Dead (1968) is public domain due to a screwup.)

A lot of Golden Age stuff is public domain because nobody bothered to renew.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Copyright is life of the author + 70 years.

Not the case for comic books, and CERTAINLY not for Golden Age comic books.

That rule (the number's wrong, though - it's currently 95 years, plus the math is wrong - 2008-70 is 1938) applies only to works to which the author holds the copyright. Comic books are generally* work for hire material, the copyright owned by the company that commissioned the work.

Golden Age comics will fall under one of two groups - stuff that was never renewed - and thus fell into PD in the 50s or 60s - and stuff that WAS renewed, so was still in copyright in 1978, but, being work-for-hire, fall under a copyright term starting with publication, not connected to the author's time of death. 75 years from publication, under the 1976 rules, 95 under the current rules (introduced in 1998).

So, anything produced before October 1923 (75 years before the Sonny Bono act came into effect) is out of copyright. And anything produced after that - which didn't fall into public domain due to lack of renewal before the 1976 rules were implemented in 1978 - will start falling into the public domain in 2018. Anything created before 1950 from a company that went defunct before 1977, is possibly, though not guaranteed to be**, in public domain.

* Indies, Underground, and Creator Owned are the exception, not the rule, and, assuming the copyright goes to a person, not a company they created to control the work, fall under the 'author's death+' rule.

** Obviously, the originating company couldn't have renewed their copyright, but somebody could have bought the company's properties, and renewed themselves.

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

Exactly. In this case, I got some Whiz comics, and I feel like sharing some non-Captain Marvel... though there's one long Captain Marvel versus the Muslim Extremists one that I think it hilariously appropriate for today... it's surprisingly nuanced for a '40s comic, anyhow. It's long, but it's almost certainly less than a third of the book with minor snippage, but do I trim down a 60+pager to 20 pages or to 1/3rd the story? For that matter, what if I feel like sharing something from a 100 Page Comic from the 60s?

With Whiz, I'm _prrrrrreeeettty_ sure the copyright wasn't renewed, but I'm not sure.

FAWCETT

[peur_evol.insanejournal.com]

Sharing for free is OK.
From what I understand (because I looked into this, as well), DC owns the rights to Fawcett/Quality/Red circle/etc. CHARACTERS.
So you couldn't publish any SpySmasher stories and sell them.
However, DC does not own the rights to every STORY that was ever published.

Additionally, DC has blatantly raped some golden age defunct publishers; they actually DON'T own Phantom Lady (nobody does). From what I understand, they didn't purchase Hoppy The Marvel Bunny, either, 'tho they've considered him to belong to them as part of the SHAZAM! family.

Just my two cents. I'm taking it that Kamino_Neko is the one with the real booklarnin'.

Re: FAWCETT

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

Well, I've got a bit of it. The question is regards to how the rules of the journal resolve around this specific case, as well as the 100 Pager case where it is still under copyright.

Re: FAWCETT

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

I'm taking it that Kamino_Neko is the one with the real booklarnin'

I should note I'm not a copyright lawyer, or anything of the sort - due to being a lit. major in university, and wannabe writer, I've ended up needing to know something of this stuff, and have read a lot I didn't need just because it's interesting to me, but it's not my speciality.

they actually DON'T own Phantom Lady (nobody does)

And the founder of Americomics is really grumpy about how that whole thing went.

Re: FAWCETT

[his_spiffyness.insanejournal.com]

Bill Black is kinda grumpy about a lot of things from what I saw on his message board. He went as far as saying that Alan Moore never had an original idea in his life.

Re: FAWCETT

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Well, he is technically a fanficwriter.

Re: FAWCETT

[gwalla.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

That's pretty funny coming from a guy whose work is all drawn directly from public domain golden age characters, usually in mild cheesecake form.