Question about copyright

[Hardcoreruss]

Right, hopefully someone can help.

There is a really old cartoon that I want to buy the copyright for. Does anyone have any ideas of how I would go about this. I have searched high and low and cannot find out who owns it at the moment (if anybody), where would I start ?

[Treebeard]

Do you know who originally owned it?

[Hardcoreruss]

No, and trust me nobody does I have spoken to every single goddamn company on earth. I think the only route now would be to hire some kind of copyright lawyer.

[gitreel]

You could ask Aero. He might know how to go about it.

[adam]

Most countries maintain a website for their copyright, patent, and trademark offices where you can look up who owns the rights to any given piece of work/technology. For some offices you may have to pay a fee to conduct a search, or you may have to call their office. I guess just start checking countries where a copyright would likely have been filed.

The information you seek is in the public domain so you don't need a lawyer unless you absolutely can't find it on your own.

[aero]

while patents and trademarks might be on government databases, I don't imagine 99% of copyright material would be registered with any goverment.

essentiallly if the individual just marked the item as copyright (and it was indeed original) it would be copyright, you don't need to register it anywhere.

there also can be in effect multiple rights holders, for example let's say this cartoon was made by an individual who own original copyright. He/she could have sold rights to another party for publication in another location or for a certain period of time. when I worked as a freelance photographer i would often sell rights for one time use, or say US or UK use only or full global rights. You don't register your origianl copyright or any of those transactions with a government.

to the practicalities: where did yo find the cartoon, was it published somewhere? If it was in a magazine, they own it (because they bought full rights or becasue it's creator was a full time eployee) or they secured tempory rights. so where did you see it?

[Hardcoreruss]

I saw the cartoon on tv in 1982. I have contacted every possible agency in four different counties all of them report as this cartoon not being copy written. I saw it on the BBC, have spoken to them and they confirm they do not have the copyright.

Is it possible to take out a copyright on something that you did not create yourself.

[offline]

You won't be able to afford the copyright. See a commercial lawyer
specializing in media and check out the license fee. A license will
give you certain ownership rights in the country applied for. You can
distribute, copy, sell and unless excluded, make merchandise yourself.

You can't copyright public domain material unless you could somehow
prove you were entitled by estate or similar.

For your interest, an average U.S. cartoon here in OZ
costs about $20,000 AUD for a license - popular items like
the Simpsons would go for many times that if Fox was
crazy enough to sell in the 1st place. Copyright, on the other hand,
could cost hundreds of thousands.

[thecoalman]

Quote directly from the U.S. Copyright page "Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work."

The registration fee is nominal if you are going to make any amount of money off it. Hehe $20,000 grand in Ausrtalia huh.

I doubt you can claim copyright to anyones work simply because it was not originally copyrighted regardless of where you live.

[offline]

Hehe $20,000 grand in Ausrtalia huh.

I'm talking about the license fee, not
copyright registration. You can't register for copyright if you
can't prove ownership. If you do not have ownership, you have
to to license the rights (unless you are Chinese)

If you choose carefully and double check
your marketing plan you can do very well. I believe the guy
that licensed the rights to Evil Dead (Blue Sky Entertainment) for just under 20 grand has made his money back several fold.

Family Guy is cartoon a series not known in Australia. The license for that
would be cheap since it was discontinued and you could easily give
away series one to a TV network at cost price and then run a DVD
deal when it got popular.

[Hardcoreruss]

Right.....

1. I can afford it

2. I have contacted everyone I can think of to find out who has the copyright - all to no avail

3. So basically you are saying that if I can not contact the people who originally made it (I know they no longer exist) that is it ?

Cheers for the help.

[aero]

Quote directly from the U.S. Copyright page "Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work."

The registration fee is nominal if you are going to make any amount of money off it. Hehe $20,000 grand in Ausrtalia huh.

I doubt you can claim copyright to anyones work simply because it was not originally copyrighted regardless of where you live.

You do NOT have to register a copyright to "make money off of it." You need to register it if you do NOT publish it and wish to sue. such an example might be code.

An original article written and published, or a cartoon printed or broadcasted (EVER), with a proper copyright notice, has all the copyright protection one needs to own it for a VERY VERY long time.

Please get off of the registration subject, it is meaningless in this case. Almost all works never need to have been "registered" anywhere to be fully protected both for ownership or a lawsuit for unauthorized use.

the original poster has not given enough details. I don't understand why. If it becasue you wish to tpotect your idea, ok. Otherwise please tell us what kind of "catoon" this is. Is it an animation, a single image cartoon? Do you have an idea of the time frame iof when you saw it? was it a known catroon character? For example King Features owns a lot. If it was a "strip" print cartoon it would be very easy to find owner as 99% are syndicated. I assume it was becasue iof you have a copy and it was an animation you would have recorded it from somewhere.

Please do not quote copyright law without the big picture. copyright is very different then trademark or patent. it doesn't need to be registered except in veyr narrow cirucumstances.

I assume videohelp.com has somethign in their faq/tos etc, but if not, I could simply place "copyright, my name, and the date, after this text and it would have full copyright, for a very long time.

[thecoalman]

You do NOT have to register a copyright to "make money off of it." You need to register it if you do NOT publish it and wish to sue. such an example might be code.

Please do not quote copyright law without the big picture. copyright is very different then trademark or patent. it doesn't need to be registered except in veyr narrow cirucumstances.

Never said you had to register to make money on it. My point was that if you were going to make money the price of registration was cheap. Since registration gives you firmer legal grounds (e.g. dated legal document) in the event that someone does pirate your work not applying for a registration on any signifigant work would be well....dumb.

[Rookie64]

I used to register my work/creations - it's been a few years, but the fee was only $10 per registration.

Right.....

1. I can afford it

2. I have contacted everyone I can think of to find out who has the copyright - all to no avail

You would just need to get permission from the owner, though it all depends what all you have in mind for using the cartoon.

If you were in the U.S. or it was an American-made cartoon, the place to look that info up would be -
http://www.copyright.gov/records/


I don't know about elsewhere, sorry.


Though, if you could afford it, why go to all that trouble to track down that cartoon - why not just hire someone to create an original cartoon for you to use?
It would be much easier and you'd be the legal owner.

[aero]

I used to register my work/creations - it's been a few years, but the fee was only $10 per registration.
....

If you were in the U.S. or it was an American-made cartoon, the place to look that info up would be -
http://www.copyright.gov/records/

These databases are really not helpful, either generally or in this instance.

Again, way less than 1% of copyright material would be registered with that database.

I just looked up five books on Amazon, five articles in magazines which were a couple of months old, and three television episodes. One was registered. And none of those are minor or old works.

Registration of published material offers not one wit more legal protection over publication, except for specific and unusual cases such as trade secret copyright which allows you to register a work without publishing it and without submitting full code to the copyright office. Example: trade secret computer code.

I would say about 99.9% of copyright photographs are not registered. Do you think freelance photographers, let's say a wedding photographer, is going to spend $30 a pop registering tens of thousands of photos? that would be over a quarter of a million dollars on registration fees alone.

A published cartoon would never need registration. A person claiming a prior copyright would have the burden of proof. They would have essentially already have to have published it at an earlier date and prove they created at an earlier date. They cannot simply backdate a drawing.

I worked for years as a freelance writer, selling my copyright material or limited rights and later as an managing editor, purchasing the same. I can tell you registering is something you might do when you have a work valued in the six figures, or which you have very good reason to believe may be disputed. We registered about two works out of thousands.

Lastly someone mentioned a $10 fee. It was $20 a dozen years ago and I beleive it is $30 now. If you create a couple of works each day you are not going to spend $10,000/year on registration. And if the US treasurey got those fees it would amount to tens of billions of dolalrs a year. A single US daily, of which there are hundreds publishes about several hundred copyright protected items each day.

Not only are the copyright databases all but useless, the are expecially useless to the original poster of this tread as a) they apparenty do not know the author and b) they have already said this is a work they saw outside the U.S.

[offline]

aero said: You do NOT have to register a copyright to "make money off of it."

Like coalman replied, NO ONE said this. NO ONE

aero said: I worked for years as a freelance writer, selling my copyright material or limited rights and later as an managing editor, purchasing the same.

you mean you used the services of a copyright agency for years
and wrote "all rights reserved" on your own documents - so what?

areo said: I would say about 99.9% of copyright photographs are not registered

So what is your point. We are talking animated cartoons here?

areo: A published cartoon would never need registration

We are talking about a televised cartoon, not some school boy scrapings
on paper. I can see you have never dealt with broadcasting - copyright
is required by all major and most minor networks.

areo said: A person claiming a prior copyright would have the burden of proof.

The burden of proof applies to both parties.

There are other
quotes I could use but I think what I've rebutted is suffice.

[offline]

Hardcoreruss,

If you can't find them I honestly do not know what your
next step should be. It might pay to turn your question
over to a paid researcher - maybe one of the online services.

If it was another medium like a photo I'd say just go
ahead and utilize it - a practice many magazines and
publishing houses do every day with little or no comeback.

In cases where the photo owner has complained, it is explained
to them that they could not be located. A small fee
maybe given to keep it out of the courts, but some large
publishers do not even do that. Not worth the value to sue.
Your cartoon could be a different story.

Best of luck!

[adam]

Registration of published material offers not one wit more legal protection over publication.

First off, if published in the United States you are legally required to register with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. Failure to do so may subject you to a fine, though you are still afforded most of the protections under Title 17. Some types of works are exempted, but motion pictures are not. Of course you don't have to file for freelance articles because serials are exempted. Same goes for most photo's, 99% of them are published in serials or not at all.

I take it you've never actually had to enforce a copyright. You are legally REQUIRED to register your work before a suit for infringement can be brought. Without registering, yes you are still afforded most of the protections offered under Title 17, but you cannot enforce any of them unless properly registered. If you have not filed you are legally powerless against an infringer.

Furthermore, if you fail to register within 3 months after publication there is basically no point in pursuing an infringement case unless you've got massive damages because it will be next to impossible to make it worth your while since you will be limited to actual damages (yours) plus profits (his), and you cannot receive attorney's fees. It is very difficult to prove these amounts, and you will rarely recoup your legal costs. At the office where I work we literally refuse to take any copyright infringement case if they failed to register within 3 months of publication. You simply can't make any money off these cases and neither can the client.

If you do register within 3 months of publication then that entitles you to statutory damages which can be as much as $20,000 plus you can be awarded attorney's fees and you can seek criminal prosecution of the infringing party. Occasionally of even more importance is the fact that you have prima facie evidence of ownship as of the date of filing. That entitles you to enjoin the distribution of potentially infringing material as soon as its discovered, until you have to time to seek a formal judgment. Without registration you've got to go through the red tape to get filed first before you can do anything, and by that time your damages will be much greater. They have expedited filing for cause, but come on, they're government workers so its still slow.

Finally, only if registered can you record with the U.S. Customs Office. Otherwise, there is nothing stopping someone from importing infringing copies. You can always register and then sue them and seek injunction, but by then the damage is done and like I said before, there is very little chance you will be able to receive money damages.

A published cartoon would never need registration. A person claiming a prior copyright would have the burden of proof.

Exactly the opposite. The person enforcing their copyright (basically the guy suing) always has the burden of proof. He must show not only proof of ownership but also proof of damages and/or profits. Proof of ownership is usually the easy part. Its the burden of proving damages and lost profits that make the suit worthless. If you've registered then the initial burden of proof will be on you to only show that the other work infringes on your copyright, cause you've already got prima facie proof of ownership. Once this is done the burden is shifted to that party to prove non-infringing use or prior ownership, which is very difficult to do.

Not only are the copyright databases all but useless, the are expecially useless to the original poster of this tread as a) they apparenty do not know the author and b) they have already said this is a work they saw outside the U.S.

If the work in question contains no information regarding the author or owner of the work, then the first place you look is at the Copyright Office's website of any country where you suspect it may be protected. Note that a regular search will not show prior assignments. If the work has been sold you have to do an archival search. It takes time. In the US you can hire the Copyright Office staff to search for you at around $70 an hour. The price varies depending on how much information you have on the work.

aero, it seems you are basing all your knowledge of this subject on your experience in publishing serials. Considering that the filing of serials with the Copyright Office is expressly exempted, I think this is misguided.

[Rookie64]

I can tell you registering is something you might do when you have a work valued in the six figures, or which you have very good reason to believe may be disputed. We registered about two works out of thousands.

For the type of work I registered, it is usually necessary.

writing screenplays and for the stage, along with being an independent filmmaker...you're in for a mighty rude awakening if you think no one is gonna hit you hard with a lawsuit claiming that you stole their material...partial or whole.

When you petal your work from agency to agency...studios, actors, directors, etc or enter your work into festivals or contests,
it's a must that you protect yourself.

Songwriters and recording artists are faced with the same situations.

Look up how many times Stevie Nicks has been accused of stealing other people's songs, for example.

These things happen quite often and are sometimes dragged out for years in court.

It's more complex than the person accusing to just have burden of proof.

Think of the registration fee as insurance - it's there for your own protection.

If you're making a profit from your work, then you're not really losing money paying a registration fee...think of it as an investment.

[aero]

First off, if published in the United States you are legally required to register with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. .

Again a whole lot of misinformation is being pushed here by people who have done a bit of reading but have obviously never, ever dealt with copyright.
You are not at all required to register a thing with the copyright office.

Do yourself a favor, ask anyone you know in the full time photography business, the magazine writing business, the (non-serial) news business, if they register all, most, or even any, of their works with the copyright office. They will laugh.

BTW, whoever wrote one uses "all rights reserved" has no clue. The statement has no legal meaning and you will not find it on 99% of published copyright or registered copyright.

[adam]

First off, if published in the United States you are legally required to register with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. .

Again a whole lot of misinformation is being pushed here by people who have done a bit of reading but have obviously never, ever dealt with copyright.
You are not at all required to register a thing with the copyright office.

With all due respect you should practice what you preach. I work in an Intellectual Property law firm. You said yourself that in the industries you work(ed) in no one ever registered their copyrights, so I'm not sure what experience it is that you think you have.

If you will kindly go to the U.S. Copyright Office's web page and read you will see that they state everything that I have already said. I did not say you are required to register with the Copyright Office, I said you are required to register with the Copyright Office Library of Congress. This means you must deposit a copy of your work and a description of it. THIS is what others will do a search on regardless of whether the work has been registered or not. However, as I already stated, failing to actually register with the Copyright Office makes your copyright unenforceable, until done so.

You are always required to register with the Copyright Office before filing a suit for infringement. There is simply no way around this. A copyright is unenforceable unless you have registered.

aero, read the basics circular from the Copyright Office. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#rp

Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U. S. origin.

Although a copyright registration is not required, the Copyright Act establishes a mandatory deposit requirement for works published in the United States

If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.

Ask any IP lawyer and they will tell you that pursuing copyright infringement without the benefit of statutory damages and attorneys fees is almost always a lost cause. Look at this little musing for example.

http://www.dinoart.com/publications/prt1pg02.html

Do yourself a favor, ask anyone you know in the full time photography business, the magazine writing business, the (non-serial) news business, if they register all, most, or even any, of their works with the copyright office. They will laugh.

Mazagines and news publishing buisines ARE serials. If deposited they just deposit the whole magazine and it satisfies the deposit requirement for every article and photo contained therein. But alot of such businesses are exempted by permission. Read here, http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ07d.pdf

Like I already said, most photo's are either published in serials or not at all. If you are a wedding photographer you aren't publishing your work by selling it to customers. If you work for a magazine as a photographer then the entire serial must be deposited unless exempted. Either way the photographer doesn't have to do anything, its the person doing the publishing.

Yes many industries just ignore Copyright registration entirely, and neglect to deposit their works with the Library of Congress even when required to. This is a matter of practicality. There is little chance an infringement will ever result in enough damages to warrant a suit, and they will only be fined for failing to deposit if they do bring suit. So they can happily go on with business as usual without registering, and their fancy smancy copyright warning on their work is really just a warning to others that they WILL register IF you infringe on my work.

[thecoalman]

Registration of published material offers not one wit more legal protection over publication,

Sure it would, why wouldn't it. Whether it was published or not it would provide a date for your work that can't be argued with. Let's say you create something and put it on a webpage. How are you going to provide proof of when it was created if need be?

Am I going to go out and register copyrights for all my webpages? No, but if I had a page that had any signifigance I would without a doubt.

[offline]

BTW, whoever wrote one uses "all rights reserved" has no clue. The statement has no legal meaning and you will not find it on 99% of published copyright or registered copyright.

I never said I wrote it on material, even copyrighted material.

Your posts are so full of misinformation I gave up earlier on.
Here we go again.

"All Rights Reserved still helps to protect the "moral rights"
of non-copyright owners in many countries, including
Australia." - Media Council of Australia

"...no longer required but has
(been used) to assist in special cases....."
- Advertising Council (U.S.A)

".. be encouraged for non copyright
material on the web. - LLC CMP Media

It gets better..

Of the Fortune 500 list, 100 percent use "All rights reserved" on
their intra and inter publications. Guess those Multi Million Multi National
organizations have less knowledge about copyright then YOU

[offline]

Adam said: The person enforcing their copyright (basically the guy suing) always has the burden of proof.

I disagree with this Adam.

I was taught that when copyright ownership was in dispute between two or
more parties, both had the burden of proof. The discovery phase
being particualry useful at this stage in order to clarify claims
and documented evidence provided by both parties. Counter
claims treated in the same way with the same burden.

If, on the other hand, the application of a particular copyright was
under dispute, ownership is a given and the burden of proof is with
the plantiff. Here is where your statement would be correct.

[adam]

Offline I think we're both basically saying the same thing. There is no such thing as the burden of proof residing with both parties. It can only ever be on one party or the other, and it gets shifted after certain questions of law or fact are answered. Its basically considered a tie-breaker. If neither can prove their point, the one with the burden of proof loses.

The initial burden of proof will always be on the party claiming infringement, because the question of who owns what is immaterial at this point. If the Plaintiff cannot show that thing B infringes on his rights to thing A, then there is no point in determining who really owns thing A. You can't go into court and force Led Zepplin to prove they wrote Stairway to Heaven just because you can prove you wrote Aichy Breaky Heart. You've first got to show that their song infringes on yours. You've just got to show a connection.

I didn't make it clear in my previous post but I intended to really trivialize this burden for a party who has properly registered their copyright. Its usually a non-issue because most alleged infringement is a blatant reproduction/copy.

[offline]

Ok, it can get confusing. I was incorrect to say both parties
had burdon of proof (at the same time) in legal terms, but not in factual ones

Here are some cases: Where does the burden rest?

Case A:

Company takes vendor to crt. claiming importing of copyrighted
material. Company has to first prove that they own copyright

Burden of Proof: Respondent or Plantiff ?

Case B:

Company takes vendor to crt. claiming reproduction of
copyright material. Vendor has to first prove they were
not infinging copyright.

Burden of Proof: Respondent or Plantiff ?

Case C:

Company takes vendor to crt claiming reproduction of
copyright material. Vendor counterclaims that they
in fact own copyright and that Company is reproducing
their copyrighted material

Burden of proof: Respondant or Plantiff ?

[aero]

[quote="offline"]

Of the Fortune 500 list, 100 percent use "All rights reserved" on
their intra and inter publications. Guess those Multi Million Multi National
organizations have less knowledge about copyright then YOU

Wow, you really have no knowlege of copyright. I can't get over how many errors you have in your posts. I really doubt you have ever used coopyright law professionally.

now you are going on about "all rights reserved. LOL. Your statement about "all rights reserved" encapsulates this. We produce many publications for fortune 500 companies and it is on less than 1% of documents. It is meaningless.

I am really suprised you keep going on by simply inventing statistics.

Going back to the issue of the copyright registration database. the reason why this no longer affords any protection and the reason why it is no longer used is that most countries have abandoned such registration. The US maintains it simpy to fund the copyright office. Indeed if you go to thomas.ocl.gov and reearch discussions about the fees and the registration, one only sees I do note that no one has challenged the simple fact that if one just counts the numbers in the database, it comprised less then 1 tenth of one percent of copyright material.

My gues is that you have gone to a amateur writing class and the teacher has taught you how to do this in order to make students who don't get published feel they are pros. Ask yourself why entire content driven web sites, major films, Exxon-Mobile's annual report, and millions of other products worth tens of millions of dollars are not registered.

[thecoalman]

OK let me pose a question to you....

I publish something on the net. I think it's of importance so I register it. 2 years down the road Joe Blow from Mega Corporation sees my page and copies it nearly word for word and publishes it on his companies website. Being that there Mega Corporation they are able to market it and make millions off it. I sue...

Who's going to win? Me with my legal dated document stating that I published this 2 years ago or Joe Blow and Mega Corporation. Without that document I'm a goldfish in a pool of pirahnas that haven't eaten in a week....

Tell me I'm wrong.... BTW why drag up a long dead thread just to get your ass handed to you? We ahave a two letter term for someone like you where I live .... JA

[ViRaL1]

@ hardcoreruss

If you're still not having any luck finding out who holds a copyright on material, I'd bet you that violating it (without making any money) would simplify things. You wouldn't have to look for them, they'd find you. Not sure what the outcome would be after that point, but at least you'd know who held it. :P

[handyguy]

What's the name of the cartoon?

The Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook : A Step-by-Step Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers (Wiley Books for Writers Series)
by Lloyd J. Jassin, Steve C. Schecter

Under $14 at amazon.com free shipping

http://www.legaldirectory.ws/Intellectual_Property/Copyright_Law/default.aspx

Also, as mentioned buying someone's copyright is another matter, instead of buying a license to use.