LogFAQs > #941959338

Zeus posted...

The trademark system remains a mystery to me. I would still really like to create a cross-media property, but wherever I start, I imagine I'd need to trademark at least some of the characters, etc, possibly just for merchandising.

Trademarking is mostly just for branding.

The perfect example is "Captain Marvel". DC could literally have a character named "Captain Marvel" (aka Shazam), but they could never publish a comic book called Captain Marvel because Marvel owns the trademark on that name.

Trademarks mostly apply to brand names and logo designs, while copyright applies to other intellectual property aspects and concepts. This is why trademark has to be renewed/protected or it can be voided/abandoned, while copyright tends to stay valid regardless of what you do with it, and dates from the specific time of creation of the work in question.

Trademark's also what people are generally talking about when you hear the phrase "confusion in the marketplace" used for cease & desist sort of situations.

This is also the loophole that companies like Disney or Time Warner are going to use when they eventually can't extend copyright protection any longer. Sure, the character of Superman or Mickey Mouse may enter public domain when copyright lapses, but they'll still retain a death grip on the trademark for the terms "Superman" or "Mickey Mouse", so they'd still be able to sue you into oblivion if you ever wrote a comic called "Superman" or that prominently advertises the appearance of Superman in your comic.

In practice it can get more complicated once you start involving International rights and there's always quirks when you're dealing with large corporations who can hire enough lawyers to bend space-time, but at base level it's relatively simple.

If you were going to establish a cross-media property where you'd be likely to market individual characters (like comic books, toys, etc), you might benefit from trademarking every individual major character, but for most creative works you're just fine trademarking the overarching branding and relying on copyright for everything else.



Zeus posted...

Wanted! (the comic) was fantastic, Wanted (the movie) was shit.

My opinion is more that Wanted the movie was bland shit, Wanted the comic is a hot steaming turd that makes the entire universe a slightly worse place simply by existing within it. But again, I kind of hate every facet of Millar and Ennis' style and philosophy of writing.
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