Is that a legal fact or your opinion? Is there any law or cases on that? Nothing personal, I just want to know if this has been tested or not.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

When is my work protected?
Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
No. In general, registration is voluntary. 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. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”

My bold.

So is a blog considered a fixed medium?

Your words are stored on a hard drive in a server some where. That’s the fixed medium.

I had been under the impression that to possess a copyright to a work I had to claim it. I thought that if I put it out in public and made no claim to it, then I didn’t own any copyright to it.

Bjartmarr:

Not since…what, 1948? Claiming copyright makes it much easier to get higher damages for willful violation, but that’s about it.

Later than that: 70s or 80s at least, assuming that by “claiming” copyright you mean attach a copyright notice. The issue has come up in SCO vs. IBM as some of the early Unix files were published without notices.

Alternatively “claiming” copyright could refer to the act of registering it at the Patents and Trademarks Office. You need to do this before initiation legal action for infringement. It’s not, however, the act of registration that establishes copyright in a work, nor the act of publication. Copyright is established automatically as soon as the work is embodied in a fixed medium.

It’s still my speech. You haven’t taken it. You have not represented it as your own speech. You aren’t trying to make money off of it.

So?

And I don’t own a copyright to it (at least, in my limited understanding of the law).

Limited to the point of being incorrect. You do own the copyright on it, from the moment it became fixed in a medium. (This assumes that you didn’t copy it from somewhere else.)

Even if I had, quoting me in order to respond to me is “fair use” both legally and morally.

That is correct. Quoting for the purpose of commenting is well established as both “fair use” in the US, and “fair dealing” under the UK’s far less permissive copyright regime.

I do not see a conflict here between free speech and IP. What the person in the example is trying to do is to take your IP and use it as his or her own IP. That goes beyond free speech. If they did it for free and acknowledged you, that’s one thing. But representing your IP as their own work, or seeking to use your IP to create profit for themselves is not free speech in either sense of the word. That’s theft.

Calling it “propery” and “theft” begs the very question. Three days ago I could have written the above paragraph and there would have been no question that it was pure speech. How is not speech now?

This has been, far and away, my favorite blog/thread/commentary of my comic to date. I really appreciate all the kind words and - perhaps more so - the free-form debate of the legal pitfalls and loopholes I may yet have to negotiate in the future. I’ll admit, I began the project in a completely naive frame of mind where all of this was concerned. My attitude not quite “to hell with trademark,” but more, “really? Post, General Mills, Kelloggs, et al, would give a flying flip about my little funny book?” In my mind, I saw a direct correlation between BOTG and the satirical work of Mad magazine, Steve Gerber and even crazy ol’ Wally Wood. But, they protected themselves with surface alterations of their targets, I admit I felt unwilling to dilute the impact of the satire by disguising the characters. Is it more effective to see Cap’n Crunch swing a bloody sword, or some vaguely similar fellow named Commander Crisp? Do I have a right to tell my own story using these icons? Legally, probably not. But, in a way I feel I (and all of us who grew up with them) do own these characters, just like I own those memories of Saturday mornings in the ’70s and ’80s.

Anyway, before I get too maudlin, I’ll just state that I’ve done as much as I know how to do to keep BOTG, as it exists, out of the legal cross-hairs:

I make no money from BOTG.

I take pains to state that I am not the creator of any of the characters used.

I name each character (even the most obscure background cameo) and ascribe to them their corporate owners.

I’m working in a field of which none of these companies has an interest; i.e. comics. So there is no direct competition. The day I start marketing my own sugar-frosted breakfast cereal, then, maybe, I’ll need to hire a lawyer.

At this point, my only wish is to see the whole thing done. Whether or not it lives on in any other form than a website, it will have at least been made and read and, hopefully, enjoyed. I think, for as dark a piece as it can be, it’s actually done a lot to trigger nostalgia amongst its readers. And, yes, I think I’ve probably been responsible for some cereal sales over BOTG’s run.

I hope you folks will stick with the book to the bitter end and, on a personal note for Bjartmarr, you should probably see a doctor about that.

I second. Though I wonder if there isn’t a subversive undertone to the comic…at least two characters have betrayed their ideals for a chance to get ahold of the cereal of their choice…is sugary breakfast cereal, after all, the root of all evil, at least in BOTG?

I think it’s good that we’re using Hereville as an example — it keeps people from assuming that I’m only saying this stuff because I don’t create anything myself, or haven’t thought about it applied to my own work. :-)

That might end up putting you in the uncomfortable situation of more or less having to take money from a piece of artwork you don’t approve of. Apart from underage slash, which I find too horrible to contemplate in detail, suppose someone wrote a Hereville comic in which Mirka becomes a fundamentalist Christian and dedicates her sword to Jesus? Or one in which she moves to Israel and slays monsters that are transparent stand ins for Palestinians. I suppose you could just donate the royalties to some group that countered the damage, but still…

Incidentally, if you want us to stop using Hereville as an example, please just say so and I at least will stop.

Does that mean that you’re ok with Hereville fanfic?

Whether or not I’m “okay” with fanfic is a separate question from whether or not I should have the legal right to prevent fanfic. :-)

I would be okay with some fanfic, not okay with other fanfic. (Slashing the non-adult characters, for instance.) But regardless of what I prefer, I don’t think I should have any legal right to prevent fanfic.

RonF, I’d say it comes down to which you think is more essential — free speech, or IP. We should try to have laws that respect both, but where no compromise can be reached, I think we should favor free speech.

That’s not “the” point — at most, it’s “a” point.

Your stated position: “to hell with trademark” implies that your are in favour of ‘abolition’, with ‘reform’ a second choice.

Does that mean that you’re ok with Hereville fanfic?

Hereville slash?!?!