IPC and Egmont. Who owns what characters?

[Peter Gray]

from down the tube-
http://www.comicworldnews.com/cgi-bin/i ... ets&page=3

quote-
"The actual ownership rights work like this; with one or two specified exceptions. IPC Media owns every IPC comic character created before 1970. Egmont-Fleetway owns every IPC character created after 1970. So, IPC owns Lion, Valiant, Pow, Tiger, and all their respective characters, while Egmont-Fleetway owns Cor!, Action, Battle and all their respective characters.

"The exceptions to this pre-1970 ownership threshold for IPC are 26 specifically-named characters that featured in Buster -- including the Leopard of Lime Street and a bunch of humour characters such as Buster himself -- which was still being actively published by Fleetway when the IPC/Fleetway agreement was made. So the creation date does not apply to these characters and they are owned by Egmont-Fleetway.


'The other small exceptions are Dan Dare and (soccer hero) Roy of the Rovers, who have both been sold off to other concerns a long time ago. In short, if you want to know which classic characters IPC have the rights to - go over to Loki's excellent http://www.internationalhero.co.uk site and check out all the IPC characters created before 1970'

With all those comics characters in its stable, I wondered if there was any possibility that IPC might get back into comics publishing.


I wonder about Whizzer and chips as it came out in 1969...or did it just make it to be owned by Egmont?

So 1960's Buster I wonder what character is owned by whom..
Terrors of Tornado street...Consternation street...Terror toys...etc..

1970 is sure a big change in comics as spyshhguy (chatting about Sparky) forum member has stated when the Beano lost 2 great artists around that time Dudley.D. Watkins and Davy Law...and when he said things changed...

[Shiner]

[quote:687507c454]I wonder about Whizzer and chips as it came out in 1969...or did it just make it to be owned by Egmont?[/quote:687507c454]


I understand that the exact cut off was June 1969, so the Whizzer & Chips characters belong to Egmont.

[Kashgar]

[quote:409bcbcae0="Peter Gray"]from down the tube-
http://www.comicworldnews.com/cgi-bin/i ... ets&page=3

quote-


So 1960's Buster I wonder what character is owned by whom..
Terrors of Tornado street...Consternation street...Terror toys...etc..

[/quote:409bcbcae0]

Following the logic Peter I would imagine that all of the stuff created in the 1960's that ended in the 1960's, like the Terrors, Consternation Street etc would be owned by IPC Media. On the other hand Terror Toys, which appeared post 1970, could be the property of Egmont/Fleetway even though the strip it was based on 'The Toys of Doom', published in Buster in the 1960's, would seem to fall into the IPC Media domain.

[moose]

2000Ad was also sold off, to rebellion. this makes the ownership of some characters sketchy when considering the starlord/tornado mergers. rebellion claimed to own all of the starlord and tornado characters, not just those that appeared in tooth after the mergers, but this has been disputed.

the long wait for any collected strontium dog always implied that the starlord era stront was still the property of egmont. i know the book was finally published by rebellion a couple of years back. anybody happen to see a copyright notice in it? it'd be interesting to see who claimed ownership.

[felneymike]

The "complete" Strontium Dog collections, like the Judge Dredd ones, have started appearing recently, i havent checked to see if they contain Starlord stories though, or if they start from his first appearance in 2000AD. I'll have a look in the shop one day

[ogtec]

The 2000ad site says that the Strontium Dog books include those strips that appeared in Starlord.

Actually, you could probably do a Complete Starlord with one or two of those fat volumes.

George

[Dizrythmia]

I've been in contact with Egmont in recent months (hence my lack of updates on the site), & from what I can gather you're all right in regards to ownership of characters belonging to Egmont, but I wasn't aware of a cut off date...

Apparently they have no interest in selling of characters either just incase they decide to use them sometime in the future. Me, I have my doubts, but never say never I suppose...

[dennis the menace]

but does this mean they still own the copyright laws as ipc have stoped publshing comics

[AndyB]

Copyright exists until 70 years after the creator's death.

Best way to describe it is that Bob Nixon died in 2002. His Buytonic Boy strips will now no longer be republished, but Egmont have exclusive control rights of the materials as copyright holders until 2072. After that, anyone can reproduce them.

[philcom55]

[quote:4d21b661cf="AndyB"] Egmont have exclusive control rights of the materials as copyright holders until 2072. After that, anyone can reproduce them.[/quote:4d21b661cf]

I think it's still a moot point. If Egmont are able to claim that the [i:4d21b661cf]concept[/i:4d21b661cf] of the Buytonic Boy was at least partially determined at an editorial level then they might be in a position to hold onto the rights in perpetuity. I think this is the approach that DC Thomson are likely to take with characters like Dennis the Menace, etc. (Then again it's also the approach that DC Comics and Marvel tried - and failed - to take with Superman and Captain America!)

- Phil R.

[AndyB]

If a court decided that Bob Paynter (for the sake of argument) and Bob devised Steve Ford, the copyright would last for 70 years after the death of whichever died second.

I would doubt that a court would decide that a body corporate acting through its agents devised a character - it would be more likely to decide that the originators were human, and under the terms of their contracts, assigned copyright to the company. Unless there are terms in those contracts to contradict this, I think the creators could assert their rights to claim creation under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act - and indeed, Leo Baxendale did so re the Bash Street Kids and Minnie the Minx.