Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[VO.SUPER]

I have avoided this thread for the longest time.  

And all I have to say in response to this news: Goddamnit, Penders.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

I guess this is relevant:

There's a whole thread here about the changes he's undergone over his history.

[AlienBunny]

8 hours ago, Razule said:

A character is more than a name, even without a design though, right? If I took a character from a book I didn't write, and used them as if they were my own creation, I could be sued. Even if they had no canon design beyond a description. The written appearance and unique traits of a character fall under copyright.

Evil Sonic and Scourge are the same character, Spaz only redesigned him. Even if it is down to design, and assuming Penders didn't draw the first concept of "Sonic in a leather jacket and sunglasses", Evil Sonic first appeared in an issue drawn by Dave Manak. 

So this is a bit more complicated because you're talking about written word. A whole book is copyrightable and from I understand, let's say JK Rowling's Harry Potter, the character, she owns the copyright to that character. But if you wrote a wizard, or a guy, that's not a wizard, named Harry Potter, she does not own that, or any parody

Here we have a different case. We have something derived off a copyrighted design, derived off a trademark name, first appeared in that copyrighted property. The redesign can be copyrighted separately and have a separate name trademark. 

Ken Penders owns the written word, from the comics, that indicates yes, this one character.  However the art is a separate case, and shows something different. And this isn't going into this was for a license property.

Drawing your own interpretation of a book character... I'm not sure where that would fall. I think that would be fan art? Copyright gets complicated if you get into different things.

At the end of the day. Sonic the Hedgehog is still Sonic the Hedgehog, evil or not. The copyright shouldn't be with Penders. Scourge I can see the copyright being with someone else, while only the stuff Penders wrote about evil Sonic he would own.

[Zaysho]

So, this is going to an issue because I found an instance of what I was looking for via the Wayback, but the images of letters, layout scripts, etc. were not saved in the capture. I know I've seen them, but obviously I do not have them and I'm not sure where else to find them so what I say should be taken with a grain of salt. The forums were murked a few years ago so I fully admit there are holes to what I'm saying and a lot of it is guesswork. This is a post I wrote back in 2015 (I was a bit more... uh, ranty before I got handed the badge and had to even the fuck out lol) with a partial quote that I mostly picked due to not liking his attitude, and I admit it will contradict what I'm putting out here.

The way I'm understanding how his claims/rights shake out, it's not just that he and Kanterovich wrote the scripts (I'm not sure if Mike K. signed his rights over to Penders or not like I believe Clayton Emery did), but Penders produced the original layouts that Manak would ultimately work from. This, in a way, probably designates Manak as more of a technician/craftsman who finished it, but bear in mind the quote I pulled in the old post above is mostly referring to inkers, colorists and letterers (which is fucking stupid and disrespectful to say, but Penders doesn't care about artists). This should not be taken as me undercutting Manak's, Galan's, Spaz's, Yardley's, et al.'s work but if we're talking about a point-zero starting point, the layouts do lend to this character at least starting with Penders. This same character, by others later on, would change but the starting point--those layouts--is probably what matters.

Of course the issue is that Scourge is a clusterfuck, for many reasons AlienBunny and others have outlined, and I don't think it's that easy to pinpoint who owns what. We have to remember, the people who did the most work with the character, even if they were part of the old guard whose contracts were screwed up by Archie, still worked with Archie before and after the lawsuit (Spaz obviously has, Manak's last Sonic issue was 2007 and if Ian and crew always had contracts, it tracks Manak's signed some with Archie).

Spaz's redesign is something he produced, but it might have been under contract and considered work-for-hire. Ian, as I understand, had maintained he was given a contract and just assumed it was standard when asked about it (iirc, Penders called the contract Archie produced in court a forgery and there wasn't a way to prove otherwise I guess) so maybe the design is sort of owned by Sega but they don't quite (but kinda do because of Sonic) own the character? I dunno. It doesn't make much sense for Penders to own this character in any way, but he apparently does or he couldn't license it.

Basically when I think of this case, it always boils down to the writers more or less getting theirs and the artists getting left out in the cold. In hindsight, it's what makes Scott Shaw's claims against Archie interesting because he served as both for a couple of stories after the mini-series and he made claims to his parts the same time. My only issue with Shaw is he seemingly doesn't know what contracts he's signing when he complains about reprints. This is not to say artists don't deserve royalties, but this is an unfortunate issue with the industry and licensed properties that basically do not favor or value creators that much.

I don't want to claim any of this is definitive, like I said, this is guesswork. I don't know enough about copyright and these things always have a lot of weird wrinkles that further confuse things. Scourge is difficult because there's a lot to consider with this character. His origin and the context in which he was introduced and handled play a big part in this. He is at once Sonic and not--his debut even has him refer to himself as Sonic! The "Evil" was appended later to make some distinction and probably seeded what Ian and crew would ultimately do with the character. It's really a different thing from Lara-Su. You can argue she's effectively Knuckles in a wig, she has the colors, the basic design elements from Sega Knuckles (I won't argue), but she's at least not (basically) a clone of an existing character.

If there's something I have wrong that I don't see, please correct me. I've been mulling this Penders crap over most of the day--something I haven't done in years but I was bored--and I can only go off some memory and try to sort out and guess from that.

[CertifiedNobody]

7 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

I guess this is relevant:

There's a whole thread here about the changes he's undergone over his history.

Does this mean anything legally?

[Zonic 2099]

 

While I do not think anybody should engage Ken, There's just something about him calling other people idiots that's pretty damn triggering.

It's probably the Archie Sonic fan in me reeling at the fact that this man who wants to protect his legacy not only took a dump on it but not long after also damned it to legal hell in the first place (with assistance from Archie's legal team.)

[horridus]

1 hour ago, Zonic 2099 said:

 

While I do not think anybody should engage Ken, There's just something about him calling other people idiots that's pretty damn triggering.

It's probably the Archie Sonic fan in me reeling at the fact that this man who wants to protect his legacy not only took a dump on it but not long after also damned it to legal hell in the first place (with assistance from Archie's legal team.)

I don't pay it much mind. Penders' definition of idiot is anyone who contradicts him even a little. It's such a broad category that it's effectively meaningless, and statements like these only reveal all the more what a colossal baby the man is. 

[SBR2]

4 hours ago, Zonic 2099 said:

 

While I do not think anybody should engage Ken, There's just something about him calling other people idiots that's pretty damn triggering.

It's probably the Archie Sonic fan in me reeling at the fact that this man who wants to protect his legacy not only took a dump on it but not long after also damned it to legal hell in the first place (with assistance from Archie's legal team.)

I'm with ya. He always does this shit. He really likes talking down to people who disagree with him and is just now starting to just outright call people idiots. 

[Zaysho]

I mean, it's not much surprise when he attacks and then blocks his own (former) translator for telling him he's wrong.

[Razule]

6 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Does this mean anything legally?

I really doubt this is anything that wasn't known 10 years ago. Taking all of that and common sense into consideration, he shouldn't be able to own a character once named Evil Sonic the Hedgehog (who just called himself "Sonic the Hedgehog), yet he does. Unless SEGA wants to do something about it when that comes out..

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 hours ago, Razule said:

I really doubt this is anything that wasn't known 10 years ago. Taking all of that and common sense into consideration, he shouldn't be able to own a character once named Evil Sonic the Hedgehog (who just called himself "Sonic the Hedgehog), yet he does. Unless SEGA wants to do something about it when that comes out..

If SEGA does one day decided to sue Penders for the usage of Scourge or other characters, do they have a valid case against him?  Like, would Scourge technically belong to them since he's just an evil version of Sonic?  And how will they get the documents to verify this case if they decided to sue Penders?

[Razule]

2 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

If SEGA does one day decided to sue Penders for the usage of Scourge or other characters, do they have a valid case against him?  Like, would Scourge technically belong to them since he's just an evil version of Sonic?  And how will they get the documents to verify this case if they decided to sue Penders?

These are all good questions that I..  definitely don't have the answer to. On principle, I think they should have a valid case against him for licensing an alternate version of their mascot. There's not really a way to know unless they actually do something, if they even consider "Scourge the Speed Demon" a threat to them in any way.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

On 11/16/2021 at 8:22 PM, Rabbitearsblog said:

Yeah, it feels like that whoever takes on this project, will probably pay the price for something Ken Penders did.

Given he's still going on about this:

I'm not sure if we can even credit him with being cautionary enough for a such a maneuver.

[CertifiedNobody]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

These are all good questions that I..  definitely don't have the answer to. On principle, I think they should have a valid case against him for licensing an alternate version of their mascot. There's not really a way to know unless they actually do something, if they even consider "Scourge the Speed Demon" a threat to them in any way.

Sega was willing to look into Sonic Omens. I don't think they'd overlook this.

[Leebo4]

Having trouble trying to find them as I genuinely want to take a closer look but can anyone find the data files that Ken released for the Lara su chronicles cast please?

[Zonic 2099]

Sometimes it's better to let cartoony characters retain their cartoony designs. While he wouldn't be able to use their old designs that doesn't mean he couldn't make new ones. But of course he won't because changing their body types to be taller and sleeker will do just as well (when it doesn't.) 

 

Except once again that's not how the copyright system works, ESPECIALLY when dealing with the copyrights of characters reliant on the licensed property they were created for. If Bendis somehow got the rights back to Miles Morales he'd be able to use Miles in any property he wanted but he couldn't be a Spider person anymore and Bendis would not be able to use anything other writers or artists added on to Miles.

I still don't completely understand why he wants to own Shade so badly. Like it's not the couple of similarities with Julie-Su that I don't understand but it's the fact that he seems to be obsessed with solely Shade. Like, he doesn't care about the Nocturnus Clan and even their leader Imperator Ix. Just merely making Julie-Su Shade the entire time is stupid. If he wants Julie-Su to have gone under a different identity briefly just make a new one rather than incur the wraith of SEGA and possibly EA/Bioware.

The game may not have been successful enough for SEGA to want to intergrate Shade into the main cast but there's no way in hell they are going to sit idly by while someone takes something of there's.

[Razule]

I can see the case for Scourge and Robo-Robotnik (notice he's not attempting to claim he owns Eggman), but in no way is Shade similar enough to Julie-Su that he should be able to say that. Obviously, she is based off of her very loosely, just like the Nocturnus Clan are based off of the Dark Legion. But they're not the same character, they're just the same concept of "female echidna who is an ally of Knuckles". Evil Sonic became Scourge, but Shade and Julie-Su aren't related at all..

By the same logic, would he try to go after IDW for Surge because she's a lot like Scourge? I don't think so.

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, Zonic 2099 said:

Sometimes it's better to let cartoony characters retain their cartoony designs. While he wouldn't be able to use their old designs that doesn't mean he couldn't make new ones. But of course he won't because changing their body types to be taller and sleeker will do just as well (when it doesn't.) 

 

Except once again that's not how the copyright system works, ESPECIALLY when dealing with the copyrights of characters reliant on the licensed property they were created for. If Bendis somehow got the rights back to Miles Morales he'd be able to use Miles in any property he wanted but he couldn't be a Spider person anymore and Bendis would not be able to use anything other writers or artists added on to Miles.

I still don't completely understand why he wants to own Shade so badly. Like it's not the couple of similarities with Julie-Su that I don't understand but it's the fact that he seems to be obsessed with solely Shade. Like, he doesn't care about the Nocturnus Clan and even their leader Imperator Ix. Just merely making Julie-Su Shade the entire time is stupid. If he wants Julie-Su to have gone under a different identity briefly just make a new one rather than incur the wraith of SEGA and possibly EA/Bioware.

The game may not have been successful enough for SEGA to want to intergrate Shade into the main cast but there's no way in hell they are going to sit idly by while someone takes something of there's.

Man, these copyright laws are so confusing, especially in this case.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

By the same logic, would he try to go after IDW for Surge because she's a lot like Scourge? I don't think so.

Well, that's one of us, then.

[Zaysho]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

By the same logic, would he try to go after IDW for Surge because she's a lot like Scourge? I don't think so.

This is a man who believes the skunk brothers in IDW are thinly veiled references and digs toward St. John despite having nothing in common with him in design or characterization. Let's not underestimate how petty he is. I don't think he'll sue over it because there's nothing to sue over, but he'll mostly just moan about it on Twitter like he has been for the past three years or so.

He knows for a fact he can't use Shade, but retroactively giving Julie-Su a generic codename ("Shade" is not a unique name) works around it. It's not any different from him deciding to keep using "Mobius" and justifying that Sega doesn't acknowledge it anymore, and Mobius itself is not a unique name, but for what this book is trying to be, he knows what he's invoking. Whether he actually gets in trouble or not is another story but I don't think he will. It'll just show how shallow he and his couple of devotees are.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

2 hours ago, Razule said:

By the same logic, would he try to go after IDW for Surge because she's a lot like Scourge? I don't think so.

It's the Penders Justice System Logic:

"It's all illegal and immoral....unless I'm the one profiting off of it. Then it's a very specific case that no one but me understands".

So, yeah, I could easily see him being that petty as to take on the Surge stuff. Hell, IIRC he's already thrown in some potshots.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Much as I'd love to see SEGA utterly destroy him in a court of law, there is some satisfaction to be taken from the idea that they won't bother because he and his shenanigans are simply beneath him and not worth their time.

[Salamander]

Exactly.  And why would he be worth their time?  Right now, he's just a guy with a big mouth on Twitter.  It's as true now as it's been for years: He hasn't actually done anything yet.  I'm not sure he ever will.

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Much as I'd love to see SEGA utterly destroy him in a court of law, there is some satisfaction to be taken from the idea that they won't bother because he and his shenanigans are simply beneath him and not worth their time.

Not to mention, SEGA is doing just fine without Penders' characters, so why should they bother?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Not sure how true this is, but if it is...that's really fucking scummy on Penders' part, even with all the other shit he's done in regards to this Scourge situation:

https://thankskenpenders.tumblr.com/post/668150923831459841/so-whos-ready-for-another-update-on-the