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

[Mega]

Ken literally quit in the first place because 25YL wasn't allowed to be the canon future and was only allowed to be a possibility. That's the irony of it all. Man quit.

[Zoomzeta]

5 hours ago, Mega said:

Ken literally quit in the first place because 25YL wasn't allowed to be the canon future and was only allowed to be a possibility. That's the irony of it all. Man quit.

And he couldn't just do a Marvel and work off of that future as a separate continuity of the mainline comics? You know, like the Marvel 2099 comics like Spiderma 2099 and others? 

[Rabbitearsblog]

48 minutes ago, Zoomzeta said:

And he couldn't just do a Marvel and work off of that future as a separate continuity of the mainline comics? You know, like the Marvel 2099 comics like Spiderma 2099 and others? 

That would have been the best option. But no, he wanted to run the entire Sonic franchise.

[Mangoaxe5]

It sucks how there will never be any future Archie Sonic reprints cause of Penders. The Sonic fanbase will have to wait for the copyright to expire on all the stories before they can be reprinted, which will never happen in our lifetime. By the time the comics enter the public domain there probably won't be any Archie Sonic fans left to care.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

4 hours ago, Vampfox said:

It sucks how there will never be any future Archie Sonic reprints cause of Penders. The Sonic fanbase will have to wait for the copyright to expire on all the stories before they can be reprinted, which will never happen in our lifetime. By the time the comics enter the public domain there probably won't be any Archie Sonic fans left to care.

I take some solace in the fact that by that same token, in his misguided, shortsighted, and greedy efforts to ensure his legacy, he's effectively buried his chances of it being anything more than barely a footnote in the larger picture -- quite possibly a much larger picture by the time the copyright/public domain stuff happens.

[Rabbitearsblog]

23 hours ago, Vampfox said:

It sucks how there will never be any future Archie Sonic reprints cause of Penders. The Sonic fanbase will have to wait for the copyright to expire on all the stories before they can be reprinted, which will never happen in our lifetime. By the time the comics enter the public domain there probably won't be any Archie Sonic fans left to care.

When will the copyright expire?

[Mangoaxe5]

35 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

When will the copyright expire?

Sorry I'm not good at math. But I'll put some stuff up for anyone who feels like doing the math.

Copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter.

Archie Sonic started in 1993.

Penders started in 1994, though for some reason he listed 1993 on his copyrights.

 

[CertifiedNobody]

On 5/6/2022 at 8:49 PM, Vampfox said:

It sucks how there will never be any future Archie Sonic reprints cause of Penders. The Sonic fanbase will have to wait for the copyright to expire on all the stories before they can be reprinted, which will never happen in our lifetime. By the time the comics enter the public domain there probably won't be any Archie Sonic fans left to care.

IDK, once Penders dies I could see Sega eventually buying back the rights for cheap so they can reprint the comics. Not anytime soon, but it could happen in a few decades.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Definitely feels like one of those "Sonic has a long and storied history, and we would like to celebrate it in all its forms" that only comes with time and maybe people who weren't there.

[Rabbitearsblog]

19 hours ago, Vampfox said:

Sorry I'm not good at math. But I'll put some stuff up for anyone who feels like doing the math.

Copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter.

Archie Sonic started in 1993.

Penders started in 1994, though for some reason he listed 1993 on his copyrights.

 

We got a long way to wait then...

[CertifiedNobody]

15 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

We got a long way to wait then...

Copyright law is so fucked and needs to be fixed. It used to be about 20-30 years after a work was created before it became public domain. You know, like a patent? Wow, it's almost like they realized people shouldn't hold a monopoly over something for twice as long as they'd actually be alive, especially when there was a chance they'd never end up using them.

On 5/7/2022 at 9:20 PM, Vampfox said:

Sorry I'm not good at math. But I'll put some stuff up for anyone who feels like doing the math.

Copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter.

Archie Sonic started in 1993.

Penders started in 1994, though for some reason he listed 1993 on his copyrights.

 

I can't wait until they can finally publish an Archie Sonic finale in 2089. But we'd probably have to wait until 2099 to see anything actually happen since Penders worked on the book for so long.

It sure is great we live in the world where the courts, arbiters of justice they are, decided to extend copyright such an egregious amount. Can you IMAGINE living in the timeline where Archie Sonic continuations could be published RIGHT NOW? That'd be a nightmare.

[MetalSkulkBane]

20 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Copyright law is so fucked and needs to be fixed. It used to be about 20-30 years after a work was created before it became public domain. You know, like a patent?

To be fair, patents might save lives or at least make them easier. We want Archie characters, but don't need them to live.

Plus, if copyrights were short, Archie wouldn't own those characters either. Or Sega. We would live in a crazy jungle where my crappy fanfics are as "valid" as Paramount movie or Sonic Frontiers. I'm not saying it would be a bad, but definitely weirder. Every franchise would "dilute" as there is no clear canon except the original works.

Personally I think copyright should go for entire live of the author, but not a day longer. If I made the story, it's fair that I own it. but after my death it should go to public, not to greedy mega corporations. There are specific cases to consider, but broadly that's best compromise.

Also, related video.

[CertifiedNobody]

14 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

To be fair, patents might save lives or at least make them easier. We want Archie characters, but don't need them to live.

Plus, if copyrights were short, Archie wouldn't own those characters either. Or Sega. We would live in a crazy jungle where my crappy fanfics are as "valid" as Paramount movie or Sonic Frontiers. I'm not saying it would be a bad, but definitely weirder. Every franchise would "delude" as there is no clear canon except the original works.

Personally I think copyright should go for entire live of the author, but not a day longer. If I made the story, it's fair that I own it. but after my death it should go to public, not to greedy mega corporations. There are specific cases to consider, but broadly that's best compromise.

Also, related video.

That was already happening with archie tbf.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

4 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Every franchise would "delude" as there is no clear canon except the original works.

I think the word you're looking for is "dilute," like when you add water to something to thin it out.

And I only bring that up because I've heard that idea put forth, but I'm not sure how much merit it ultimately has.

People are going to go for quality works, or the works that appeal to them most of the time. Take, for instance, Disney's Aladdin. And I mean very specifically Disney's Aladdin, because they didn't originate the story or many (if any) of the characters, but they did -- to use a Penderism -- bring value to it.
 

In the public domain, anyone could use it, but few found the success that Disney has with it. Three movies, several seasons of a cartoon, theme park stuff, and you still see things popping up now and again, like the re-released video games or odd new merchandise.

And despite being a public domain property that others can use, Disney still owns their specific version of Aladdin. People can tell which is which.

Another stranger case is Sherlock Holmes. Within a short time of each other, we got the Robert Downey Jr. movies and the Benedict Cumberbatch show, each with their fans. Rather than dilute the property, it's created some fascinating scenarios where fans wanted some sort of nod from the actors to their "shared" role (such as it is) when both appeared together as different characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

(As an aside, some copyright shenanigans seem to see that the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

And on that note, let's flip the coin here: companies who own their stuff outright. Your Marvels and your DCs. How many versions of Batman are currently active out there? How many different movie versions have we witnessed in the last ten years alone? (Answer: 3, not counting animated versions.) Reboots aplenty, unfinished stories left dangling... you and your friend can both like Spider-Man, but it may not even be the same Spider-Man... or even the same Spider-Man who is currently stewarding the franchise.

Another example? Sonic the Hedgehog, of course. There are literally a dozen versions of Sonic around, and even in the games, there are multiple running around.

Meanwhile, we see what talented people can do with a franchise. Fan games that people feel are better than what SEGA puts out. Stories that continue where Archie and Fleetway left off. All kinds of crazy, wild, wonderful stuff.

Sure, not everything that fans make is a winner, but look at what these companies are doing. Can you honestly say that every product they release is a home run?

Companies aren't worried about their brands being diluted when copyright expires. They're worried they might not be able to keep up.

[Leebo4]

Can’t agree with the talk of copyright one day after death, it means if it’s something self owned then their families and their wills have no say in how to protect them and make sure their wishes are respected

 

Sir Terry Pratchett’s daughter would be unable to do anything if a studio decided to make their own unauthorised adaptation of his Discworld books which basically insult them

 

while copyright extensions can be annoying, I wouldn’t go for the alternatives being put forth here by just the life of the author

[CertifiedNobody]

I think the benefits of having copyright significantly shortened greatly outweigh the negatives

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Intellectual property law under capitalism is inherently anti-creativity. The only thing that "copyright" should protect is having your actual work stolen. Ideas are not material, they cannot be assigned an objective price, and the thing that the law should be concerned with is the labor you've put into something, not who should have a right to hold an idea hostage for more money.

[Leebo4]

I can’t agree as significantly shortening copyrights will set a dangerous precedent and I would rather an author’s family have a say in how their work is represented after their death

[MetalSkulkBane]

3 hours ago, Leebo4 said:

I can’t agree as significantly shortening copyrights will set a dangerous precedent and I would rather an author’s family have a say in how their work is represented after their death

How long? Will grandkids defend the creator vision? Great-grandkids? And at this points, how would they know what the creator wanted?

If we accept that all fiction eventually must belong to whole society, then sooner or later someone will make crappy version of great work. And we must accept that. Alternative would be franchises dying with author.

The "danger" of studios making terrible adaptations of franchises against author's kids wishes is a price I'm willing to pay for Disney to loose monopoly on every IP there is.

14 hours ago, King Scoopa Koopa said:

I think the word you're looking for is "dilute," like when you add water to something to thin it out.

Yup, thanks for noticing.

As for your post, your 99% right. It's more irrational parts of my brains that don't like the idea.

I'm a Sonc fanboy, I like to catalogue it. To 100% complete things. To follow continuity, as dumb as it is.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

11 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I'm a Sonc fanboy, I like to catalogue it. To 100% complete things. To follow continuity, as dumb as it is.

Hey, that's not dumb, it's totally valid. Not everything is going to be to everyone's taste, and there's only so much time, money, and attention to go around.

And hey, I'll bet that more than a few people here would agree that not even every official version is to their taste.

The beauty of a more open system, though, is that if you want to stick with the SEGA Sonic stuff as the "authentic" deal, you can. It's kind of like what we have with all the fan games and comics now, just more "legal," I guess. There's some awesome stuff being done out there, but for the most part, I stick to SEGA's official stuff, but more because following everything else would spread me too thin.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

14 hours ago, Leebo4 said:

I can’t agree as significantly shortening copyrights will set a dangerous precedent and I would rather an author’s family have a say in how their work is represented after their death

But the work of others is not their work. If your weird Pratchett scenario came to pass, what would happen? I'm Terry Pratchett wouldn't care much about a mean-spirited ripoff of his work when he was alive, and he sure wouldn't care now. And your tradeoff for this is...anyone being allowed to tell any story they want at any time forever and make money off of it no matter who gets angry about it.

So yeah, no. Even if he or his family did get angry, that's worth sacrificing the world's artistic freedom over? Some people should just be allowed to sit on ideas and charge potential billions of dollars for other people to make similar ones at their own discretion, just because they'd get mad if we didn't let them? No, screw that. If that makes a person mad, they deserve to be mad.

[Leebo4]

25 minutes ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

But the work of others is not their work. If your weird Pratchett scenario came to pass, what would happen? I'm Terry Pratchett wouldn't care much about a mean-spirited ripoff of his work when he was alive, and he sure wouldn't care now. And your tradeoff for this is...anyone being allowed to tell any story they want at any time forever and make money off of it no matter who gets angry about it.

So yeah, no. Even if he or his family did get angry, that's worth sacrificing the world's artistic freedom over? Some people should just be allowed to sit on ideas and charge potential billions of dollars for other people to make similar ones at their own discretion, just because they'd get mad if we didn't let them? No, screw that. If that makes a person mad, they deserve to be mad.

I meant creator owned stories and characters and not just similar concepts. Plus I think this thread has gotten sidetracked

[Shaddy Zaphod]

But nobody is saying the credit a creator receives for their own work should disappear, that's the whole point. Even if you make a Sonic fan game, the law should protect you so long as the work you put in isn't taken from anyone else.

[Mangoaxe5]

Found Ian's old comments about Penders copyrighting his stories from 2010.

Ian posted this on July 8th a day after Penders announed to the world that he had copyrighted all of his Sonic stories.

Quote

I had wanted to let this ride out by itself and not mire BKC in paranoia and speculation, but given the amount of email, PMs and general broo-ha-ha around the net, I guess a little pat on the head and "everything will be fine" doesn't quite cut it.

I still do not want this to blow itself out or proportion, so this is the go-to thread for info and news. There will be no discussion because there's nothing to discuss, and all it will do is get everyone in a tizzy.

The Short Version

The Archie legal department is handling things. I've been told to keep writing as usual and to continue with our plans for the end of 2010/start of 2011. As I said before: no worries.

The Longer Version

Bear in mind that I don't have all the information. All I'm going off of is my limited understanding of the ownership of things within the book and franchise. So unless Mr. Penders pulls a rabbit out of his hat, I feel fairly confident in my understanding of things.

1) Work-for-Hire - While I'm bound by my contract to not talk about my contract, I can say I'm work-for-hire. I've been on the book for five years (!!!) and I'm still freelance, part-time, on-the-side. All of my contributions to the book are for the book, and I'm paid for that.

All the stuff I came up with for "Young Salem" - Foreman Armstrong, Mortimer Destiny, the Lizarmyn, Horde Lord, concept, etc. - is Archie's. I can't do my own book under BKC about Mortimer and Felicia's younger days.

Sonic-wise, I have a harder parallel to draw since I've spent more time using the content within the book and taking it in new directions. I suppose Thrash is the best example, lean as he is character-wise. He's Archie's. Plain and simple.

Everyone on staff (and I include us freelancers when I say this) has to sign that contract. So unless Mr. Penders's contract was wildly different, he signed away those characters before he even created them.

2) SEGA - It is my understanding, as explained by Mr. Penders himself years ago on his forum - that ultimately SEGA owns everything in the book. If it's associated with Sonic in the book, it is by extension SEGA's. From my understanding, that is why BioWare could so freely emulate the Dark Legion for the Marauders.

I know there was some confusion elsewhere concerning rights to SatAM. As it was explained, SEGA owns the intellectual property - the characters and such - but DiC retains the rights to the animation. So you wouldn't see SEGA reselling SatAM boxsets willy-nilly. Conversely, DiC wouldn't be able to just up and make a new Sonic cartoon.

3) Reboot - Oh if I had a nickle for every time this word got tossed around. I've already begun material for 2011 and, as I said before, have been told there's no need to change. Not that we're blindly forging ahead, but that we have no reason to stop.

What would need a reboot, in the scenario that Mr. Penders somehow did win out in all this, is his plans. SEGA would not grant him the license to use Knuckles, I can flat-out tell you that with certainty. So right there the core component of the Echidna Lore - the main character - is gone.

He would not be able to use Angel Island, Mobius, or the Chaos Emeralds. Easy enough fix, though, right? It's Skyhigh Island on Terra using the Magi-Gems for flight. (copyright, by the way. Double-tappsies, no take-backs).

But the entire Echidna cast is comprised of Knuckles knock-offs. Mr. Penders would be required to redesign the entire cast, unless he's planning on trying to pass it off as parody (which I doubt).

By the time the property would be safe to touch, it would be unrecognizable. It's not about Knuckles's society or family. It's not about echidnas (the kind we think of, at least). It would now be a sci-fi-lite story about some dudes on a flying island. That could be interesting in its own right, but it's not the story I think Mr. Penders wants to tell, and it's not the one the echidna fans want to read. So I'm not entirely sure what his greater thinking is here.

Again, take my words with a grain of salt. I'm not privy to absolutely everything going on. But from what I do know I am confident I - and you all - have nothing to worry about.

So relax, curl up with the latest SONIC book, and enjoy it while ignoring the storm outside. This too shall pass.

I remember back in 2010 I thought that it would all blow over, and the comic would be fine.

[Promethean0416]

1 hour ago, Vampfox said:

By the time the property would be safe to touch, it would be unrecognizable. It's not about Knuckles's society or family. It's not about echidnas (the kind we think of, at least). It would now be a sci-fi-lite story about some dudes on a flying island.

Quite the foreshadowing as this is what is now being made, a former shadow of a past comic series. 

 

I may have mentioned this before, but this so called app/graphic novel/interactive whatever it's called, will probably not resonate as much with the current series still in progress and a possible new world for Knuckles with his new TV series (if it is still happening). Many of the fans have moved on to other things, and I only see the same few people showing interest in what previews are shown for TLSC.