quote:
Originally posted by DuplicateMan:
Thanks for the copyright info, Dave. One thing I've always wondered is how anal do publishers like DC or Marvel tend to be on names. Obviously, if I named one of my characters any variation of Super- Bat- or Spider- I'd be asking for trouble, but what if I named a character, say, Champion, and then remembered that Marvel had a character by that name?
OK, now everyone is getting copyright mixed up with trademarks. (We write it as two words: Americans write it as one word.)

Spider-man, Superman and Batman are registered trade marks. This means that their owners have a piece of paper which says that they own these names. So if you use Batman in your fan fic, even if its not an exact representation of the drawing of Batman which DC has registered as a trade mark, its still an infringement.

Copyright is different. There is a Copyright Registry in the US, but its not compulsory to register copyright. Copyright springs into existence the second the work is created. I paint a picture, it is immediately protectable by copyright. So you can't reprint DC's "I, Vampire" by photocopying it and selling it to your friends for 50 cents, because DC owns the copyright in it, even if they don't own the trade mark for "I, Vampire".

I hadn't heard about the Omega issue before. Marvel were relying upon a piece of federal legislation called the Lanham Act. It effectively stops people from using unregistered trade marks which have a strong reputation in them. Its much weaker than having a registered trade mark (Trade marks are the crown jewels, because they're easily enforceable and they're assets on your company's books). Marvel probably asserted that there was a real risk of confusion amongst members of the purchasing public that Marvel's Omega would get mixed up with Northstar's Omega.

There was a certain element of bluff to it, though, because to prove it Marvel would have to go out and do a survey of comics fans to prove the reputation in their unregistered Omega mark was strong, and to prove the confusion. That can be very difficult to do, and extremely expensive. I personally would have told Marvel to get lost, but who wants to fight Marvel in the courts for years?

On the issue of "Champion": if you created a character, called it Champion, and it looked nothing like Marvel's Champion and had totally different powers, then I'd say you'd be ok. "Champion" is a fairly generic word, after all, and it would be hard to say that anyone had a valid monopoly in the word (Having said that, DC and Marvel jointly own a trade mark for the word "superhero", so anything is possible).

But why would you want to use the name "champion" anyway? Its forgettable, generic and descriptive. If your character was a commercial success, you'd be very unlikely to be able to register it as a trade mark and gain solid proprietary rights in it.