Superman Through the Ages! Forum

It's been brought to my attention by an associate of mine who's been involved in various comics/films legal disputes over the years that in putting Fleischer's book (even updated and annotated) online is, in a sense, "republishing it" without the author's permission and may leave the editors and contributors  (US) liable for copyright infringement issues with not only Michael Flesicher but  DC as well.
 
Even though this is NON-PROFT AND FAN BASED... Unless Fleischer is aware of this and approves, this project may be doomed in the format we are now pursuing.

I hate to make like "Jor-El' but I am more than a bit concerned...
unless one of us is really Michael Fleischer and/or has written permission from him to undertake this project.

A suggestion may be to use his book as a SOURCE MATERIAL ONLY (not just reuse it and then add to it)  in conjunction with the comics and other research materials and essentiatly WRITE OUR OWN ENTRIES (much like we've been doing in the OVERVIEWS section) and cite other source materials much like footnotes.  

In that way it's ORIGINAL MATERIAL and not infringing on Fleischer's copyright.  DC on the other hand is another issue and Id sure hate to lose STTA and the Fortress as well due to their litiginious nature.  On the other hand, there's a lot of fan based films and bootlegs circulating at comic book conventions and online that DC doesnt seem to bother with pursuing.  The key here is that we are NOT FOR PROFIT.


Thoughts, gentlemen?

I tend to agree. We should be using the Fleischer book only as source material, and then write original work to go into the various entries. Not only would it make Supermanica potentially lawsuit-proof, it'll probably make for better reading anyway since the material will consist of original writings (like when I wrote the entry on Wonder-Man, for example).

As for art, we might have to keep Bill 9K up to his elbows in animation cells and paint but I think we're OK with the art (being I steal it from elsewhere anyway*cough*grandcomicbookdatabase*cough) Besides what's photshop for ?  Besides cropping? heh hehe

But let's see what Rao, Beppo and that guy from the bottle city have to offer before we get our typing/writing shoes out... :roll:

Maybe that Maggin character is around...lurking. :wink:

Gee ... drawing stuff that concerns Superman, my favorite super-hero. Now there's a chore I'd absolutely hate! :wink: As for Maggin ... one can always hope!  :D

Well, Rao's the one with his neck out, so it's his opinion that matters.  I brought up some of the same concerns when the first few comics went online, but apparently DC is aware of this site and letting it go.

The Fleischer book may be a different story; I know it was a years-long project for the author and he may not appreciate having it reproduced.  On the other hand, since DC refuses to acknowledge any of this information as "history" any more, it's unlikely they'll ever want to reprint the book.

I'll wait for Rao's decree.  Until then, I'm confining myself to self-authored entries covering the post-64 years.  But because it's neat and tidy, I'm trying to follow Fleischer's format.

It's my understanding that there was an initial battle with DC over copyright in the early days of STTA and that Rao has posted on this in his notes on the anniversary.  Portions of the Fleisher book have been online in the old encyclopedia for awhile now.

Does anyone know what Fleisher's up to these days?

I have been informed that Michael Fleischer sued The Comics Guild for an article in which Harlan Ellison slammed MF.  Actually went to trial and TCG won.  Imagine...

I think if MF's work is excerpted as a footnotes or referred to as a source material, should be OK but to reproduce whole entries??? Dunno.

I await the Glorious One's insight.

The Great Superman Book is copyright Michael L. Fleisher, so it's really his opinion that matters.  This book came out approximately 30 years ago and I have no idea where Mr. Fleisher is hanging his hat these days.  I cannot even begin to speculate what his opinion on this project would be.

My experience with DC has been that if they don't contact us, then what we're doing is OK.  As soon as anyone does anything that they don't like, they will make their opinion known, and fast.  And it's not like they're going to sue anyone, their first step has always been to just ask us to stop.  Sort of a, "you don't know unless you try it" approach.  Not very formal, but it's gotten us this far.

I would say it's OK to put the articles up, and then if DC or Fleisher complains down the road, we re-write them or remove whatever the offending content is.

:s:

Okay, chief.

Sure, chief.  :P

and with that Bill gets banned ;)

Fleisher sued the Comics Journal and Ellison over an interview the Journal did with Ellison.  In the interview, Ellison talked about current 1970s-80s comics he liked and Fleisher's Jonah Hex and Spectre stories were mentioned (I think Fleisher's novel "Chasing Harry" was also mentioned).
If I recall correctly, Ellison called Fleisher a name (a synonym for crazy) that Fleisher felt was defamatory and sued for libel.

A very long court case ensued over Freedom of Speech/First Ammendment issues and the Journal won.  Jim Shooter (of Legion of Superheroes and Marvel CEO fame) famously testified for Fleisher.  The transcript of the whole case was printed in a massive issue of the Journal with a great cover illo of Shooter by Megaton Man's Don Simpson.  I recommend that all comics fans and fans of the American Bill of Rights and Constitution check out that issue of the Comics Journal.  Issue 115, April 1987.

Telle, I meant Journal..where was my mind this morning?

But...all this, news to me.
Yeah - Suspended Animation.  Bad typing.  stinks.
 :wink:

I came late to this party and didn't get around to reading this thread until yesterday.  I guess I rather naively assumed that since we were so brazenly copying from TGSB that some sort of permission had been obtained.

But now that I know that it has not been, and I think on the whole copyright issue, I'm going to have to bow out of this project.

Thanks for letting me, a new comer, jump right in and feel welcome on this project and the best of luck to everyone.

Bye.

Admiral,
you can still write your own entries using the comics themselves as source material as Ive been doing.

I think it's a very bad idea to include material from TGSB without permission. At the least, it should be segregated from newly contributed material until permission is obtained. Otherwise the new material just creates a derivative work, which is still subject to restriction by the original copyright holder.

Ulp!

But he's MIA.

Just cause MF doesnt post here doesnt mean he's MIA but yweah, Ive brought up these concerns before which is why Ive striven to do new entries off the top of my head or backed by my own funny book research.

Oh and luckily for me I dont have TGSB...phew!~

Neither do I (sadly). That's why I wrote mine based on my own research like Klar.

I don't think it's a good idea to add material off the top of one's head, because the documentation likely won't meet TGSB standards. Every bit of information in TGSB is documented by at least one specific story source. This documentation is one of the book's essential features. Original research is really a requirement for new material if we hope to maintain TGSB standards.

We'll be fine until the copyright holder discovers what we've done and decides to enforce his rights. At that point, unless we've segregated his material, all our work would be lost. If we're serious about this project, I don't think we can afford that risk.