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

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 hours ago, Tenko said:

To be fair he did mention releasing M25L on the app for free. So it wouldnt be for profit.

Thing is tho it may end up breaking some other statuate in the process. It could be seen as being used to promote the app, which in turn would bring income from people attracted via the free material, people whome may end up purchasing his paid products from said app.

If unaltered it could also cause customer confusion, which Archie could work with as a basis for a case. Which product is the continuation of the comics the app is distributing, Penders things on the app or the Archie comics. Especially with him constantly posting on his Twitter with replies like "find out what happens after <insert thing person asked about from the original run of comics here> in TLSC/Storm".

But again, I imagine he doesn't have the legal right to even give away issues he didn't pencil, colour or edit, let alone own character rights to some of the cast etc just because he owns the stories inside, especially as a way to fill and promote his app. Unless he plans it to be a text only release with names and places changed >.<

The thing is Archie would still have a case, due to them having the very same issues up on their app for sale. That's going to be taking a major chunk of the profit those issues could make if they were released free.

We also don't know if he's gonna release them free of charge. All we know is The Storm is free. He could try to sell off the issues on the app.

[Salamander]

Ken always seems to confuse the idea of owning one aspect of a thing with owning all aspects of that thing.  It's like how fans technically own their own fanart; it doesn't give them the right to mass-produce and sell it without having officially licensed the material.

[Agie]

Oh, but I can totally sell my old, awful fanfic without worrying about any legal repurcussions whatsoever! Hey, Ken's doing it, why can't I?!

[Blacklightning]

9 hours ago, SurrealBrain said:

Oh, but I can totally sell my old, awful fanfic without worrying about any legal repurcussions whatsoever! Hey, Ken's doing it, why can't I?!

I feel like this above all else is why this won't work - if Ken somehow got away with basically anything from bootlegging to copyright theft, others would start getting the same idea and piggybacking off the license at Sonic's expense, and Sega would absolutely not fucking stand for that precedent being set. Hell, I know I wouldn't. Even Ken doesn't, judging by the way he asks people to put his name on fanart on the offchance that it actually crops up. Honestly, he should know better than this, but frankly I'm not sure what I expected of Penders besides blatant hypocrisy.

[Betz]

Wait, we're in page 248. Crossover with another thread until 251?

[Disonoid 3000]

On 7/25/2016 at 11:51 PM, Terriful said:

Wait, we're in page 248. Crossover with another thread until 251?

The "Name Something About The Lara-Su Chronicles' Copyright Ken Penders  Pre-Release Stuff You've Actually Enjoyed" Topic.

So many heads will explode that by the time we get to 251 we will have mirrored the comic's character removal. 

[MightyRay]

Since Reminton's design shocked me so much I decided to dig up those old Lara-su designs I showed you guys a while ago and see if I can have a crack again. Because if Mr Penders can inflict mortal damaged then so can I*. (I hope my design sketches actually don't do that and I'm sorry if they do.)

Spoiler

Lara-su being stubborn towards her elder Spectre and to the right Lara in shonky looking power armor doing her best Doom Slayer impersonation. Lara you need a helmet to do that.

Here is my attempt at Michael Taylor (I'm not spelling his name like Mr Penders does.) St. John and Ensign Brownie. I really like Taylor since he first arrived and I hope he doesn't get butchered... (lel like that won't happen.) His outfit was not great so I simplified it a bit. St.John looks like St.John minus the poison spikes on his tail that have caps on them to prevent himself accidentally poisoning his co-workers and superiors, however the creeper has a berserker mode where he looks a lot more alien than anthro skunk... which I'll draw later. Ensign Brownie gets a pair of antenna and a third eye for the moment.  

Might upload some more later. Enjoy!

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

GOOD FUCKING GOD!

I thought I drew badly...

Also, what's the status report on his progress of LSC? Has he shown any other writing besides the brief script he made well over 2 years ago?

[MightyRay]

19 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

GOOD FUCKING GOD!

I thought I drew badly...

Also, what's the status report on his progress of LSC? Has he shown any other writing besides the brief script he made well over 2 years ago?

Err... sorry to ask that but is that good f'n god post aimed at my junk or Mr Penders design of Remington that he recently unveiled. I'm just confused that's all.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

He is almost undoubtedly not referring to you.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Mightyray said:

Err... sorry to ask that but is that good f'n god post aimed at my junk or Mr Penders design of Remington that he recently unveiled. I'm just confused that's all.

lol, that was aimed at Penders' design of Remington. My bad for not being specific. ^_^;

[MightyRay]

Thanks for the clarification CSS! My mind get confused easily sometimes then stresses about it so I'm glad I didn't botch anything. 

[horridus]

9 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

GOOD FUCKING GOD!

I thought I drew badly...

Also, what's the status report on his progress of LSC? Has he shown any other writing besides the brief script he made well over 2 years ago?

According to Adamis, Penders has all the pages for The Storm, but so far he seems dead-set on adding as many trinkets and bells and whistles as he can to his app. He has shown an 'Upgraded Prototype' at Comic-Con (which he claims was a super smash, like he always does) and intends to have a 'Beta Version' out sometime in August. What the difference is, I have no idea.

Asides from that, there has been precious little released regarding the status of LSC proper, though given that he has said things like he is still 'refining' it and still 'thinking things over', I'm going to hazard a guess and suggest he ain't all that far along in that one anyway. 

[Adamis]

Most of them are still in a sketch phase, though he might have made some progress, but given his current schedule, I doubt it.

[MightyRay]

Welp... I've gone ham designing and redesigning Mr Penders stuff... Might as well show you all the 'fruits' of my late yesterday afternoon drawing binge. Yes, I did pretty much nearly all of these in the afternoon. Hooboy, I hope you guys like these designs.

Spoiler

So first up is my interpretation of Auri-On, a hippy elder set in her ways, guiding her tribe to safer grounds. I envisioned her to be very sharp witted and enjoys giving folks wooden puzzles to solve. Redesign of Xero, Mr Penders if your reading this pants are awesome and I will put pants on everyone so help me. Youngish Julie and Knox going to the beach...? I hope I can do proper designs of them eventually...

So I for some reason decided that I needed to read over Mr Penders scripts and do more designs because once you go ham it's hard to stop. Cobar is the mechanic/engineer/hey old man do you know how to reconfigure/fix/control legion tech? You were a member once right(?) type of guy. I have no idea who or what the 'emissary' is so I made them like a guide and purposely left their gender at the door. I have a hunch they are important and represent the council in some way. Also possibly, could be badass. Young, daggy Lara doesn't think so... she got a bad feeling and isn't happy her dad is 'gone'. 

Now for everybody's favourite thing to read in comics, politicians. (lel) 

Councilor Revlor is the far left, followed by Councilor Bilmore, Councilor Jeremiah, Councilor Zayen and squished at the end is Councilor Tera-Li the science lady. I tried to make these bozos look interesting as possible while also being members of a council of some kind of order. Wait, where's Tera-Li's hat? Ladies can't wear hats, they do wear brooches though... I just didn't think of it until now...

 

And last but not least is the High Councilor. You can tell he's the leader due to the pointy hat and extra stuff on his robe! Also Beserker St. John getting ready to rip and tear power armor Lara-Su... 

 

Enjoy! I hope they aren't too bad!

[dwitefry666]

RE: him reprinting Mobiius X Years Later

I think I may have a precedent for why he can't (yeah i know everyone pretty much agrees he can't but i have examples, let me feel clever) - back when IDW (?) were reprinting Marvel's Transformers comics they had to skip an issue with Spider-Man in it because, I believe, although Hasbro owned the material from that comic they didn't own Spider-Man. The same thing happened to Marvel when reprinting series for their Essential line, this time with issues featuring ROM Spaceknight as a guest star, they own all the comic but ROM himself so couldn't reprint the issue and skipped it. I am not a law student, in fact I'm a bit thick really and Penders' settlement with Sega/Archie is very... odd sounding but my thinking is if Marvel or IDW/Hasbro couldn't do it, I don't see how some bloke who used to write Sonic can.

RE: him buying other creator's work

Surely that completely goes against everything he fought for, because someone who isn't the person who produced the work would own it? 

 

 

 

[therealfalconpawnch77]

I'm not the most knowledgeable on the History of 25YL, but what does he mean by restoring the original cliffhanger ending?

[horridus]

3 hours ago, dwitefry666 said:

RE: him buying other creator's work

Surely that completely goes against everything he fought for, because someone who isn't the person who produced the work would own it? 

Not exactly. See, when asked why he would want to buy out the copyrights of the various other creators who worked on the comic, one of the reasons he gave was to 'protect their rights' if in the event the Sonic lisense ever went to a company like IDW, claiming that he would be able to give them a 'better deal' than Archie does or IDW could, with the implication being that he would give them a cut of whatever profits would be made from LSC and the lisensing of their work. 

Mind you, that was what he *claimed*. His actual actions in the past paint him as a man who cares about 'Creators Rights' only so long as it affects him- he stole the name of his series from a fanfiction made by a fan and defender of his and then refused to speak to him about it afterward, has repeatedly nicked photographs and images from online that he didn't make, and much of his work is filled with 'references' that cross the line into flat out substitutions. SImilarly, Penders only regards creator's rights as being aplicable to those whom he deems as 'most relevant' to the creative process- which does not include inkers, colorists or letterers, whom he has stated are 'not as neccessary'. 

5 minutes ago, therealfalconpawnch77 said:

I'm not the most knowledgeable on the History of 25YL, but what does he mean by restoring the original cliffhanger ending?

You got me. I'm just finding it amusing that he's honestly going to try and go through with including Sonic material in his totally-original-I-swear work.

[Mustard.]

3 hours ago, therealfalconpawnch77 said:

I'm not the most knowledgeable on the History of 25YL, but what does he mean by restoring the original cliffhanger ending?

If I remember it right, Sonic's trip back in time was meant to fail with him winding up as a ghost and living through the entire great war and everything else as a ghost with no way of interaction with anyone while the people in the future resorts to sending back someone else to make everything right.

 

[Tylinos]

6 minutes ago, Mustard. said:

If I remember it right, Sonic's trip back in time was meant to fail with him winding up as a ghost and living through the entire great war and everything else as a ghost with no way of interaction with anyone while the people in the future resorts to sending back someone else to make everything right.

 

Yup.  He detailed it here, though I don't know if that's specifically what he's referring to.  It sounds like 144's ending itself was changed.  Maybe there was supposed to be an extra page at the end instead of that incredibly tacked-on "meanwhile in the past" epilogue page, and the editor nixed it?

[horridus]

Soo evidently he's going to edit the ending then, with the implication being that the one we saw was changed from whatever he originally had planned. Though of course, he's 'not entirely sure'. Sure hope he intends to let Steve Butler and everyone else who worked on that story in on whatever profit he intends to make from this. 

[Tenko]

Well, I prodded about if he was going to give fair credit where its due to the other creatives on the issue he wants to re-issue on the app, he replied with a pretty positive and resounding yes. So that's a good sign.

Followed that up with a question regarding the cost of said re-issue, pointing out that he had to alter his project due to it involving Sega owned characters etc. Meaning that it would likely have to be a free issue. Even with the alterations made to the end, the comic in question still includes Sega owned characters.

Have yet to hear a response so far.

[Tylinos]

1 minute ago, Tenko said:

Followed that up with a question regarding the cost of said re-issue, pointing out that he had to alter his project due to it involving Sega owned characters etc. Meaning that it would likely have to be a free issue. Even with the alterations made to the end, the comic in question still includes Sega owned characters.

It's going to be on the free TL-SC companion app.  That's probably the reason he's feeling confident about it being legal.  The issue is that he's going to be using trademarked characters.  Free or not, that can potentially cause huge trademark infringement issues, as US trademark law relies heavily on whether the use of trademarked properties can create confusion with consumers that leads them to believe they're from an official source.  And given that this app is being used to promote a graphic novel which won't be free, that could be a problem.

[Tenko]

So apparently...

He sounds like he's not really that bothered. Presumably he believes he can get the permissions easily I imagine. That would mean Sega and possibly Archie too, since it's from one of their comics regardless of who owns the original story content.

Browsing the story in #144 there is a few Sega owned characters of note. Sonic, Sally, Rotor, and during the final panels Tails, and the Chaotix. He says he's going to change the ending so the last couple likely won't matter. But Sonic, Sally and Rotor play a large role in the story. Unless he plans to just change the characters names, which may not fly since they still look the same as from the original comic as he says he's only changing the art in the final panels.

As always highly confusing.

[horridus]

He seems to be deliberately evading the fact that it's not just his characters involved. Either he's utterly convinced that SEGA will just ignore him despite the breach in copyright for some reason or the next, or there's more to whatever terms and conditions to that settlement agreement than we could suspect. Because frankly if it isn't one of those two things, I'm gonna confess that I really cannot imagine why he'd be so eager to engage in this kind of behavior, IF he goes through with it to begin with.