Gaiman pwns McFarlane once again in court

[samurainoir]

Judge rules Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany are derivative characters | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

So Angels Domina and Tiffany and Dark Ages Spawn is considered derivatives of Gaiman's creations Angela and Medieval Spawn. Which means Gaiman gets half the profits from action figures, comics and whatever other products or media they have appeared.

Note Gaiman written issues of Spawn have recently been reprinted in omnibus format.

The case, which began last month in Madison, Wisconsin, is rooted in the prolonged legal battle between Gaiman and McFarlane over ownership of Medieval Spawn, Angela and Count Nicholas Cogliostro. A federal jury found in 2002 that Gaiman has a copyright interest in the creations. However, in 2004 Todd McFarlane Productions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the $15-million judgment in the Tony Twist case, leaving Gaiman unpaid. With TMP now emerging from bankruptcy, Gaiman petitioned for a ruling on the "knock-offs," and an accounting of what he's owed by McFarlane.

What's interesting about this is that Gaiman appears to be giving the share of his profits coming to him to charity...

Writing on his blog last night, Gaiman doesn't seem as relieved as you might expect: "I wish I took some kind of joy in this, but I don't. At this point all I hope is that Todd can do an accounting for all the comics I wrote for which he paid no royalties, and the rest of it; and that he'll settle up and I will make some comics charities very happy; that his comics company will finally come out of bankruptcy; and that I can forget this forever."

(I'm assuming ACTOR and CBLDF?_

[CaptainTrenchcoat]

McFarlane is such a schmuck.

[BlackKnight]

Todd Made Gaiman's nonsense cool.

[rche]

It has been an awful long time since I have read anything Spawn like or related, but didn't Todd invite guest authors/artists onto the Spawn run in the first year or so of the book?

[palitoy]

Ok Bizarro

Todd Made Gaiman's nonsense cool.

[rche]

^^

[BlackKnight]

Ok Bizarro

Hey Man ...,
I was more so Talking with-in the Mythos of Spawn, and the Said Character Angela , which I do believe what I wrote was accurate.

The story in which Gaiman wrote, was ok ...,
But 90+ issues later, the Character Became something, rather than an Idea in a 24 page Book .

I read Spawn From Issues 1to100 .
All of them.
Then Walked Away, when They Killed off Angela.
But , Because of Gaiman, She Had to be killed, ... However I believe the Character became something a lot different, than like I wrote in His 24 Page story.

BTW ..., If it's so Important for Him to Sue Todd,... yet again.
What He do, already spend all the Cash or something ?
I mean ..., when He sued him the 1st time,... all the Idea's He is trying to Sue this time for, or present then Too. It's not like It's some New Idea,... Most concepts He has issue's with in this New Lawsuit, Were all present in the Previous time of that Lawsuit too.

[Brazoo]

That excerpt of the judges ruling was amazing!


BlackKnight - I never heard about any of this stuff, but this guys post under the article cleared up some of the questions for me:

McFarlane made an arrangement with Gaiman basically saying that Gaiman would do work on Spawn and in return McFarlane would give him as payment the Miracleman rights he believed at the time he had acquired from Eclipse as well as the physical film/pages of several unfinished issues. When the work was done, I believe he gave Gaiman the film/pages, but reneged on the rest of the agreement, deciding that he rather put Miracleman in the Spawn-verse than give transfer the rights back to Gaiman. Thus violating his contract with Gaiman.

"Didn't McFarlane think to protect himself when he asked Gaiman and the other writers to contrbute to his comic?"

McFarlane would have protected himself and earned full rights to all of the characters that Gaiman created for him IF he had honored the terms of their contract. He chose not to. But he kept using Gaiman-created characters in the Spawn books regardless.

"Wouldn't Medieval Spawn be as derivative of Spawn/Al Simmons as Dark Ages Spawn is of Medieval Spawn?"

Medieval Spawn was created specifically to be derivative of the original Spawn. But when a court ruled that McFarlane failed to pay Gaiman for the work he did in its creation, and was thus using the character he did not have the rights to, McFarlane chose once again not to uphold the contract and pay Gaiman (additionally now for the characters' unauthorized use). Instead McFarlane made new characters that were essentially identical to Gaiman's characters, though with different names, for the sole intent of not having to pay Gaiman, and thus worming around a previous court's ruling. This judge ruled that the new "technically slightly different characters" are for all intents and purposes the same characters that Gaiman created.

"Did Gaiman create these three characters specifically for the Spawn series, or did he create them from something else and ended up using them here?"

Yes, he did create them for Spawn under terms of a pre-negotiated contract. But it was determined in court that McFarlane did not uphold his side of the contract.

"If the former, how is that any different from a writer who creates new characters for a DC or Marvel comic book? If it's work for hire, then those two publishers own them, right?"

The difference would be in whether or not Marvel/DC decided to actually pay those 'work for hire' creators for the work they did. If they pay them, then yes, the company owns the characters. However, if it is proven in court they they violated contracts, ( like in the Gaiman vs. McFarlane case), then the companies will be in trouble over the use of those characters.

I hope that clears things up a little bit.

Also Gaiman mentioned in the article that he plans on donating the awarded money to comic book charities.

[palitoy]

Hey Man ...,
I was more so Talking with-in the Mythos of Spawn, and the Said Character Angela , which I do believe what I wrote was accurate.

I can't argue the context of Spawn worth a lick but your statement taken as a whole was kind of funny.

As for the reason, it seems that Toddy should honour his obligations. Never thought he should have lost the Twist case but this one is kind of cut and dry in my eyes.

[The Toyroom]

I bailed on Spawn after the first 14 issues or so....and I think that was the Image title I read the longest...

[samurainoir]

However I believe the Character became something a lot different, than like I wrote in His 24 Page story.

If was actually five issues. #9, the three issue Angela Miniseries and a later issue that Gaiman plotted, although we can say 4 1/2 issues if that were the case.

I'm not really up on the Spawn mythos either, but to use a parallel situation, the sad reality is that Len Wein gets the creator credit for Wolverine (and I'm assuming the royalties), even if it was a slew of later creators, Chris Claremont, John Byrne and even Frank Miller chief amongst them who really filled out the character's many defining traits.

I was also astounded at the ruling of the Tony Twist case, but my understanding is that as savvy a creator and businessman McFarlane is, his gigantic ego won't allow him to shut up in his own best interests. Then it snowballs from there.

In both the Gaiman case and the Twist case, it was public statements that hung McFarlane.

With no written contract, Gaiman and McFarlane had a verbal agreement that he would "take care of Gaiman" better than the big companies like Marvel and DC. Something he reiterated is a public forum (I believe it was an interview with Wizard Magazine). So they used Gaiman's creator contracts with DC as a basis for his agreement with McFarlane.

With Twist, the case was pretty flimsy all around, but the ruling hinged entirely on another interview that McFarlane did in which he stated that he named the mobster character in Spawn after Twist as homage to the hockey player.

[LadyZod]

What I find interesting is the whole idea behind inviting the people onto his book. At the time creator's rights was taking a center stage. He and the rest of the Image crew were really vocal on the whole "we'll cross over, but any character created by someone is owned by that someone regardless of where they appeared."

Angel, Coglistro, and Spawn from the middle ages (only called Medieval Spawn for merchandising purposes on the toys) were created by Gaiman, not as a work for hire, but as part of a Guest story. Todd made a big deal about Gaiman owning any characters created by him.

(Though deriviative of Spawn, Gaiman did introduce the concept of multiple Spawns throughout the ages, and when the similarities between the two characters are removed, this middle ages Spawn has enough to stand on its own to be considered a new character. Meaning, Todd can created other Spawns throughout the ages, but he cannot use the exact aspects that made the middle ages Spawn unique... which Dark Ages Spawn did.... thereby violated the copyrights of Gaiman.)

When Todd bought the "rights" to Miracleman (and I use "rights" in quotes because there is no proof those rights were ever owned by Comico...it's complicated) Gaiman and him struck a deal, Gaiman signs over his rights to those 3 characters in the Spawn universe for Miracleman. Todd went back on the deal, but continued to act as though he had the rights to Angel, Cogliostro and olden times Spawn... and Gaiman sued for backroyalties.

This new suit was to prevent Todd from surcumventing the original ruling by changing the hair color and names of the characters to continue using them.

Of course it can be argued that Todd just created SIMILAR characters, but in that similarity comes the whol derrivative argument. I mean, George Harrison's My Sweet Lord was different than He's So Fine... but not different enough. That's the point.

[samurainoir]

Using Gaiman's DC Contracts as a basis for the royalties McFarlane owes him, DC has a creator participation deal on what I believe is termed "derivative characters". For example Supergirl is a derivative character from Superman.

So if DC spun out "Sandwoman" based around Gaiman's Sandman, he would be entitled to royalties for "Sandwoman" comics and merch.

McFarlane tried to get around the original ruling by killing of Angela and used similar warrior angel characters which are obviously derivative of Angela. I believe there were even some Angela action figures that were solicited that ended up being renamed into derivative characters like Tiffany or "Goddess" (the manga/anime style Angela?).

[Blue Meanie]

What confuses me is the fact that he filed for bankruptcy to protect himself from the Twist case...yet he can still produce figures and comics??!!?? I don't get that. Where does all the money go from all of that? I always thought that if you were bankrupt that was it...you're bankrupt, and whatever assets you have are divied up between all of the creditors etc.

BTW...reading this was the first I had ever heard of McFarlane going bankrupt. Guess he shouldn't have spent all that money on those worthless baseballs

[BlackKnight]

McFarlane tried to get around the original ruling by killing of Angela and used similar warrior angel characters which are obviously derivative of Angela. I believe there were even some Angela action figures that were solicited that ended up being renamed into derivative characters like Tiffany or "Goddess"

... Not really .
To Sum-up Real quickly...
Angela is an Angel from Heaven, that Hunts and Kills Hell Spawns.
It was written very eairly on, that She wasn't the Only 1 , Obviously, ... in any Idea of Angels there is More than 1. I believe that this was also written far before he was sued the 1st time.

Tiffany was in the Book , from very, very eairly on.
I dunno if any of the Action Figures did switch names ...
However I do know that most of the Angel Themed action figures, did also appear in panel's and stories here and there as well.

Has anyone ever seen Gaiman's design concepts on Angela ?
Just curious here ....
If a writer creates a character ...,
and an Artist draws the vision of the character, ..
Shouldn't that Idea be owned by Both instead of 1 of them ?.