Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Durall
I'm not a lawyer, and could be very well misinformed about this, but this is my understanding of the situation:
While much of what ERB wrote is in the public domain, the characters themselves (John Carter, Tarzan, etc.) have been trademarked.
This has the unfortunate side effect that any use of them outside of simply printing the public domain manuscripts represents a threat to the trademark. Which, I understand, the ERB Estate and Disney will defend vigorously.
The situation extremely similar with REH's Conan and Frank Baum's Oz. Republishing the manuscripts in the PD is allowed, but further utilization of the IP is not really an option.
I gather that Adamant Entertainment had many issues with their Mars game, which had art that (to my eyes) looked extremely similar to ERB's Martians and caused them some legal issues before release.
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That is all pretty much the way I understand it.
Trademarks do not expire as long as the trademarked character or image or whatever is still in use.
Disney had a big part in the having copyright terms extended here in the U.S. When say the copyright on say Steamboat Willy expires, you will be able to show that movie, which 'stars' Mickey Mouse, but you will NOT be able use Micky Mouse in any other way, as he is trademarked.
And Disney does vigorously defend it's trademarks. They will even throw their weight against smaller competitors who are 'in the right' - usually a smaller company cannot afford to defend itself against a juggernaut, even if they know they will win in the end (not that Disney is the only company to do this).