intellectual property is a bitch innit. you cant get sued over stealing/using ideas but you can if you borrow them once these ideas become physical. I don't have much love for sega or companies that screw their talent pool. .. so I hope it throws a big turd in the gears or monkey wrench in the punchbowl or whatever it is. anything you do on company time for the company belongs to the company, what is at issue is it is a one time specific usage and set fee. if it goes beyond that, of course monies would be owed. when you sell/hand over the rights to something it is for that instance alone and cant be parlayed into additional concepts. ..works both ways. if I acquire the rights to a character for a breakfast cereal project, I cant use that same character in anything outside of the cereal project .. so maybe theres some of this there. . .
<a href="http://"http://www.kenpenders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1877#p1879"" target="_blank">A member already replied on his form about his stupidity.</a> <!--quoteo(post=0:date=Fri Jul 09, 2010 2:57 AM:name=KaosuReido)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KaosuReido @ Fri Jul 09, 2010 2:57 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Obviously, you should get royalties for work used. That's a given. However, the gist of your post was "I own all my characters and I'm going to take my toys home so no one can play with them", not "I'm trying to get royalties". Of course, this comes after Sonic Chronicles released so you can try to claim royalties on that too. You also plugged your ComicCon appearance where you'll be selling copies of your other creator owned work, and presume to be selling copies of a book that cannot use any Sonic elements (including Echidnas, any of that backstory, or really anything Sonic related whatsoever) with what you claim are your characters. Obviously the comic's fandom isn't going to say "oh good work!" en masse for you (though obviously a group will, as I'm sure some other posters here will prove), and the way you've presented things reads more like you're just taking everything, claiming ownership through a very dubious way, and going "buy my stuff". Royalties are one thing. I absolutely believe you should get money owed to you for work you did, if your contract allows for it, and morally even if it does not. However, the claims of ownership of such broad characters and concepts that are pretty much obviously derived from Sega properties, heavily entrenched in Sega's ownership, and so heavily tied to Sega's marketing materials, basically means you'll be in a legal quagmire for years trying to fight what is essentially a battle against a brick wall with far, far more money than you. What irks me most are your plugs for your other works, and your treatment of people who think what you're doing as wrong as "I don't get it how could you possibly see what I'm doing as wrong it's obviously good you just don't get how great it is that I'm trying to fight a legal battle against the comic you enjoy". Like I've said. Royalties are obviously something you should get. The ownership rights? More proof would be needed that you own characters and concepts. If you don't, all this effects is reprints, and how much Archie owes you in the future, and retroactively. So, that won't effect the comic at large. Without proof you own their rights (beyond your word, which isn't as trustworthy as documentation no matter WHO you are), it's basically he said/they said, and at the moment it appears much more likely that the big corporation owns the characters they've been using for years, since their lawyers would have course make sure of that. In addition, if you win, how does everyone benefit? If your claims are that everyone should get royalties, they should all be included in any lawsuit, not just yourself. Otherwise, you'd be shutting down a source of revenue for the current workers on the book, and the previous writers and artists wouldn't get anything from that either.[/QUOTE]
I kind of think he's right. He created these characters and they're still used, but he gains nothing from it, while in other companies they do. Regardless of the personal opinion of the fans, in his eyes what he created is being butchered. If not enough, his own work is being reprinted and redistributed and he isn't winning anything from it. It's unfair in my opinion. Why couldn't Ian just put the characters either on a bus (all of them, not just those that were unimportant) or stop using them and creating something else instead? I agree he's being forceful and a downright bastard, especially with taking the characters under siege, but if no one lifts a finger, then nothing is ever done. Maybe a serious threat would be a wake up call. I don't aprove the whole own comic and selling posters at some convention though. He's just asking for it there.
You sure about that? I don't think Chris Claremont gets paid everytime someone uses one of the many, many, MANY characters he made for X-Men, but I could be wrong.
Royalties, sure. Selling a graphic novel about Knuckles's father? Maybe if you give him a really fucking dramatic redesign that looks nothing like an echidna and place him in an entirely different setting that just happens to mirror the events of the—wait. Wait. I've read fanfictions on FF.net that have been thus adapted into "original novels" before, and they were shit. Fun coinkydink, that.
I'm saying that because of what he said: He could be lying sure, but really, why would he lie about something easily disproven? Yes, I agree with the royalties, not the rest. I was doumbfounded when he said such a thing, especially the comic. Nice way of shooting himself in the foot.
I'm pretty sure he's talking about royalties for reprints there, not for use of his characters. (unless you were talking about reprints in the first place, but it sounded like you were talking about characters)
A word from the editor and cheif of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/...ter/#more-49482 . Ken will never have a chance.
So he only has rights over 1 character in all this? and not even a really important one? good luck having that hold up in court and archie can just write Hershey out if anything.
Or given how generic'y fancharacter Hershey is, just invent a character kinda similar and make it the butt of jokes whenever the opportunity arises
Not gonna name any names, but I talked to another contract worker who said Ken's got no leg to stand on saying "I signed the same document [Ken] signed, everything we do is property of Sega". Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
So that pretty much confirms it - Ken doesn't have a leg to stand on, provided the contract he signed is produced in court... if things end up even reaching the stage where the courts get involved.
I have a theory about this, please bear with me here. I think that this is all for Penders to give himself publicity and recognition. His recent titles are less than popular, and he has no name recognition since he left Archie. He doesn't really care about the use of the characters, just that people kept reading after he left. Therefore, he is attempting to grab on to whatever vestiges of his previous well-known work any way he can. If the only way to do this is a lawsuit, then so be it. He hopes that through his actions, sales of his recent work will increase, as well as give him some limelight. Either that, or he's just an idiot with no understanding of copyright law. Could be either, really.
