DC Comics Prevails In Batmobile Copyright Dispute 115
Posted
by
timothy
from the mechanical-royalties dept.
from the mechanical-royalties dept.
think_nix writes "Wired reports of U.S. District Judge Ronald S. W. Lew siding with DC Comics in the federal copyright court case against Gotham Garage owner Mark Towle. DC accused Towle of selling 'unlicensed replica vehicle modification kits based on vehicle design copyrights from plaintiff's Batman property, including various iterations of the fictional automobile, the Batmobile.' Lew noted that 'DC Comics pleads sufficient facts to support its allegations. Although, generally copyright law does not apply to "useful articles" such as autos.'"
Re:I'm actually ok with this (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a difference between 'a device inspired by, and with similar functionality to' a fictional device, and 'a device who's sole selling point is it's resemblance to a fictional device'. An iPad and a PADD may be conceptually related, but no more than Burger King and McDonalds are conceptually related. (Less, probably.)
Copyright protects the expression not the idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I would, but Bill Finger and Bob Kane are dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the Batmobile debuted in 1941, using the copyright rules in effect of the times, the name would be public domain since 1991. Since our congressmen are apparently paid by Disney, this date was pushed to 2011 and now 2031. Let us try to guess how much in royalties the descendants of the creators of the name Batmobile will get. Lets see... Oh yes they will get ditkuss.
Bill Finger probably made a total of 50K off of batman his whole goddamn life. So I am not crying for DC here.
Similar Cobra lawsuit, but FactoryFive won (Score:3, Interesting)
Factory Five [factoryfive.com] makes Shelby Cobra replicas. Carroll Shelby sued to get them to stop in 2000. He lost. He tried again recently for the coupe version. Lost again, with predjudice. Only major change I'm aware of as a consumer is that FactoryFive can't use the term "Cobra" to describe their product. Here's their celebratory press release. [factoryfive.com]
Seems like Gothem Garage should review this case and maybe change their advertising.
Re:I'm actually ok with this (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish the dude with the mod-points to burn had read the context of this conversation. But, since he didn't catch the original post about inspiration vs. duplication, I guess I have to expand my point even though that nice simple little picture very clearly shows a not-iPad.
- Wrong size.
- Wrong aspect ratio.
- Wrong color.
- Recessed screen.
- Buttons on the bezel.
- No rounded corners.
- Access panels in the back, presumably for upgrades or replacable battery.
- Bulge on the back of the device. (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrSbfQFP2Q [youtube.com])
So what's similar about it? Umm.. well... Sisko's using an app that does look strikingly like something from the iPad app store. And beyond that? Well... erm, no, it's really not similar at all, especially when this conversation only comes up when talking about Apple's lawsuit over the Galaxy Tab. And you know what? That detail alone really makes this discussion amusing. In an attempt to show how iPad like a Star Trek PADD is, a screengrab of a prop that would fail ALL of Apple's objections to the Tab is presented to us!
The silliness of this doesn't stop here. That app we see running on Sisko's PADD is what makes this reference come up. Most of the time we see a PADD on Star Trek, besides not physically looking at all like an iPad, the actors we see using it aren't tapping on the screen with their finger, they're tapping at buttons at the bottom of it or using a stylus! If 15 seconds of Star Trek canon were erased this discussion would be over before it began!!
*Sigh*. Shame on me for being an obsessed Star Trek fan who also owns an iPad. That makes me a loser. I accept that. However, type 'PADD' into Google Image Search and see for yourself.