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


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Okay, so I'm trying to understand this.

Is he going to individual artists and offering to buy their copyright to the Sonic characters they created, or is he trying to get a copyright on all non-contracted characters in general?

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4 minutes ago, Ogilviochi Cooper said:

Okay, so I'm trying to understand this.

Is he going to individual artists and offering to buy their copyright to the Sonic characters they created, or is he trying to get a copyright on all non-contracted characters in general?

From what he said, I'd assume he means he's trying to purchase the rights from the other creators.

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If he does start using characters that people really miss from the pre-reboot era, he's just going to have more haters for "stealing" the characters from the comic he forced to reboot. Yeah, he's gonna be really looked down upon for doing stuff like that...

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"I'll give you seven dollars and a framed picture of me. That's enough, right?"

I'm not all too worried about this. He clearly hasn't any idea what he's doing or the impact his shitbaggery has left on others.

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I decided to "bite the bullet" and tweet back to Ken and now my head hurts from banging it into the desk.  He needs to stop making such cryptic statements and never explaining them.  We all clearly don't "think" like him to understand what he believes is "clear reasoning" for unnecessarily buying up copyrights for characters now long since dead in the minds of most of the community.

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9 hours ago, Mightyray said:

I don't wanna have to put copyrights and trademarks to Ken Penders on future oldArchie! drawings I do that feature characters you didn't make...

LOL, honestly this is my biggest worry too. The thought just makes me cringe, especially considering his stupid overreaction to Kevin Knowles making mere fan art way back when. Of course, we all know where that went, but personally I don't want to be contracted by Penders to do artwork of his inevitably awful redesigns of characters he didn't create :P

This is also a good time to remember that there's a non-negligible chance that Kenders won't even release the Lara-Su Chronicles, considering how much progress he's made so far (even if part of it was a family emergency, this project was originally slated to be released in 2012, so let's just say I don't have a lot of confidence in him).

I'm not exactly sure why Penders is doing this, to be honest, considering how he never cared about other writers' work. My best guess is that he's hoping it will attract more Archie fans, but obviously I highly doubt it will work.

I used to sort of have a distant dream that maybe, just maybe, Archie would someday be able to use non-Penders Archie characters again, and this would throw a monkey wrench into that...but it was never that likely to begin with, and I never felt too strongly about it either. It would just be a nice bone to throw to fans of the old 'verse, but personally I don't really care about most of the axed characters.

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So at first I thought this was more broad than usual, but he clarified that yes, he's just going to go to the other writers and ask for their characters.

Mr. Penders thinks this is legal, because on the basis of there not being a contract that says otherwise, the characters are the writer's.

As I recall, the very reason we had to endure the reboot and all its fallout is because neither Archie nor Ken had a contract, so the judge ruled they both have co-ownership.

In other words, he's using self-serving logic, rather than paying attention to actual law. The U.S. is a common law jurisdiction, and if Archie appeals to the prior judge's case, it's very possible they would be able to secure co-ownership to block him from monopolizing the characters, unless Ken makes a good case why they should be exclusively his.

Or Hell, it could go the other way: Archie could end up with total copyright on all the characters.

Given how there's precedent for employers owning what employees produce on their time and money (e.g. salaried workers), I'd say Archie has the better case for ownership. Ken didn't independently create all these characters and storylines and sold them to Archie, but designed them all FOR Archie.

Penders is letting his ideals of ownership ("I created it, so it's mine, not my employer's!") get the better of him, to the point he's ignoring legal precedent. American property law has it where you contract your labor in exchange for a wage, and the products of that labor belong to your employer, NOT you. Just because you don't have a piece of paper doesn't mean you don't have a contract, e.g. oral contracts.

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Let's just say that Penders got everyone he could in this. In theory, wouldn't that just mean that instead of Archie and Penders, Creator A, Creator B, Creator C, and on down the line co-owning respective characters, it all comes down to just Archie and Penders?

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5 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Let's just say that Penders got everyone he could in this. In theory, wouldn't that just mean that instead of Archie and Penders, Creator A, Creator B, Creator C, and on down the line co-owning respective characters, it all comes down to just Archie and Penders?

Correct.

So he better word his contract with these artists carefully.

If he says "exclusive rights" or the like, Archie has good grounds to nuke him. The creators are only within their rights to sell their half of the copyright.

Ken thought he scored a victory with that court decision, but that all depends on how Archie responds to this. As said, they could make a more compelling case all the characters are theirs based on the fact it's absurd that a company would grant co-ownership. How many other companies grant co-ownership to the people they contract to make IP for them?

I question the intelligence of the judge who made the original decision anyway. Did Archie's actions in any way (i.e. royalties, regular correspondence) indicate that they had agreed to share ownership with Ken?

No. Ken is taking Lockean property ideals too literally. He feels that since he made with his hands, it must be his.

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One tweet from me and he's essentially spilled his misguided plan haha.

So the gist of it by the sounds, is that he wants to secure these rights so he can have a greater controlling percent of Archies reprints. I pointed out that most of Archie's reprints have ceased and even the Archives are slowing of not stopped, to which he replied,  failing that if not Archie then he wants to offer the library of reprint stories to another publisher for income.

So I responded pointing out that to do that he would have to replace all the Sega owned characters and locations, as well as those he couldn't obtain rights to via other creators if it left Archie who has those rights currently for their reprints. Which would mean they are no longer reprints as they would have to be edited and changed a great deal, and also no longer Sonic, both of which would lessen its 'quick money' and selling power to any potential new publisher as they would have to wait for him to edit and insert new characters and story elements etc.

This guy tho, seriously, anything for a quick buck. Even trying to buy out others creations, we assume at a cheaper rate than he would negotiate for with Archie or another publisher, so he can get a bigger slice of pie.

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Seriously, is he forgetting the Sega characters exist in those stories too, or does he really just want to reprint the tiny handful of stories without Sega characters?  If so, that seems an awful lot like the very thing Archie's doing with reprints that he's been criticizing.

That nonsense aside, my favourite tweet of today's dogpile was this:

Responding to someone asking you to stop being cryptic with another cryptic message does not make you non-cryptic.  I really hope that he's just trolling with that one, and doesn't actually believe that.

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So Penders has now offered up some insight into his reasoning. 

So... what, he thinks that because Archie is no longer reprinting pre-reboot stories it means that somebody else will and that the creators will not get paid for it? Really? Is that the logic here? Somebody help me, because I really am struggling to understand his precise train of thought. 

 

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Just now, horridus said:

So Penders has now offered up some insight into his reasoning. 

So... what, he thinks that because Archie is no longer reprinting pre-reboot stories it means that somebody else will and that the creators will not get paid for it? Really? Is that the logic here? Somebody help me, because I really am struggling to understand his precise train of thought. 

 

Did he miss the memo about SEGA using the reboot as an opportunity to coil around Archie and greatly limit its freedom?

I don't think those reprints will see the light of day if Archie's not doing them.

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3 minutes ago, horridus said:

So Penders has now offered up some insight into his reasoning. 

So... what, he thinks that because Archie is no longer reprinting pre-reboot stories it means that somebody else will and that the creators will not get paid for it? Really? Is that the logic here? Somebody help me, because I really am struggling to understand his precise train of thought. 

 

Honestly, I'm almost willing to believe that as the truth.  I mean this is far from being the craziest thing Penders has spouted out before (which is crazy in itself, now that I think about it).  I mean, come on.  I'm more than open to thinking IDW operates differently to Archie, since that's the case with different publishers.  You can't always assume they behave in the exact same way.

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57 minutes ago, Tenko said:

So I responded pointing out that to do that he would have to replace all the Sega owned characters and locations, as well as those he couldn't obtain rights to via other creators if it left Archie who has those rights currently for their reprints. Which would mean they are no longer reprints as they would have to be edited and changed a great deal, and also no longer Sonic, both of which would lessen its 'quick money' and selling power to any potential new publisher as they would have to wait for him to edit and insert new characters and story elements etc.

Who would miss anything from SEGA when you've got Floating Island Productions™ characters there? It's not like anyone still cares about SEGA after they stopped making consoles, anyway.

It's all about the Nya-Nya!

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Well, this seems to confirm that either Ken doesn't get that Sega simply wouldn't be interested, or he's hoping they won't be so that he could complain about them "screwing over the little man" again. (Though in the latter case, why the heck would he even spend the money, instead of just trying this with stories featuring only his characters and Sega characters?  So, really, it's probably the former.)

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For some reason, Tweets arent showing right for me.

10 hours ago, horridus said:

Well, that's a pleasant thought, and an even more pleasant game to engage in; the Creator Cave-In Countdown. 

Contacted by who... I have my doubts. 

Also:

Cb3XxMiW4AIUStj.jpg-large.jpe

So.. does he know they're not gonna do anything? cause if so....

This won't end well at all.

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If ya refresh the page, the Tweets should show. :)

Gawd, Sega better do something about this...or at least, tell him to go away, as Kenders is kinda going too far. XP

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I kind of hope that Flynn is going to reintroduce a revamped Fiona Fox. It would be interesting to see Penders' reaction.

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9 minutes ago, DaddlerTheDalek said:

I kind of hope that Flynn is going to reintroduce a revamped Fiona Fox. It would be interesting to see Penders' reaction.

Well, Fiona's not his character (and let's hope it stays that way), but given Pen's reaction to Shade, Archie really has nothing to gain but another reason for him breathing down their necks.

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Yeah, better to let Ken suffer the full brunt of this situation of his own making than to risk arming him with any further ammunition.

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