Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents, and branding irons

[KingRoyal]

This guy is also public domain



Feel free to make your own characters based on his likeness. Perhaps a criminal who thinks crime is funny? Chilling

[Thad]

You could have him fight Zorro. Or the Scarlet Pimpernel.

[KingRoyal]

In two years he could fight the Shadow, maybe. Though that would just be the radio play version, which doesn't have a visual. Maybe combine him with Dracula?

[Thad]

I think the Shadow's look was defined by 1931. Definitely by 1932. So not too far past his radio debut.

[Thad]

Amazon refuses to pay screenwriter for the right to reboot Road House

So, this is kind of an interesting one, if you're as interested in copyright minutiae as I am.

Lance Hill wrote the script for Road House and then, through his company, Lady Amos Literary Works, sold it to United Artists.

As 35 years have elapsed since the sale, he's seeking to reclaim the copyright from the increasingly-ironically-named United Artists, which is now owned by Amazon. He's represented by Marc Toberoff, who is *the guy* for copyright transfer termination litigation (he represented Jerry Siegel's heirs against Warner and Jack Kirby's heirs against Disney; both cases had mixed results in court but ended in settlements that made his clients very happy).

Now, Amazon's doing something that AFAIK is novel: they're claiming that the Road House script wasn't produced on spec, it was work-for-hire. That's normal enough, but the unusual part is they're claiming it wasn't work-for-hire for UA, it was work-for-hire for Lady Amos Literary Works. If that were the case, then it's a work of corporate authorship. If it's a work of corporate authorship, then the copyright transfer can't be terminated; only natural-person authors (or their statutory heirs) can terminate a copyright transfer.

As Lady Amos is merely a legal entity that Hill uses to do business, has no employees, and did not pay him to produce the script, this seems like a reach to me. He did sign a contract with UA agreeing that it was WFH by Lady Amos, but that's not necessarily relevant; if a work is for-hire then it's for-hire and if a work is spec then it's spec, you can't retroactively change the terms under which it was created, no matter what you sign. (At least, starting in 1978. Determining whether a pre-1978 work is for-hire is more complicated.)

I'm curious how a court would actually rule on this, but I don't think a ruling is what Hill's really after here. This will most likely end in a settlement where Amazon gives him some amount of money and/or credit for the Road House remake.