Copyright of Scrooge McDuck

[drakeborough]

In the topic of the Papersera Forum dedicated to DuckTales, back in 2011 a user claimed that at the time the tv series aired there was a litigation for ownership of some characters between Barks and Disney, with Disney losing the lawsuit because of an unauthorized used of characters. The sentence supposedly certified that Scrooge and other characters were created by Barks for the editor who had the licence to publish comics (Western), but Western was not a direct emanation of Disney and so the characters created for Western couldn't be freely used by Disney. Western needed Disney's permission to print Donald Duck's stories, since he was created by Disney in animation, but Scrooge and the others were created for Western comic books and were supposedly not part of the Disney licence. At this point, Disney supposedly had a private agreement with Barks and paid him a big sum of money to buy the rights to the characters without making the deal widely known. It is said Barks didn't care about the lawsuit, and the litigation was started by two fans who also took advantage of the fact that some episodes were adaptations of Barks stories; this may explain why the later episodes contain less Barks adaptations.

The user who made these claims was asked for a source, and he said he was told these things by Disney comic author Carlo Chendi in private conversations.

Has anyone heard anything about this issue? I never heard of it before, and the idea that Scrooge may not have been a character owned by Disney for its first 40 years of existence goes against everything I know about how the copyright of these characters works.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Well… the funny thing is, this loophole had popped into my head a few months ago, but I had no idea that it was real/that somebody else had claimed it was real. But no, I don't actuall know anything about that.

[iggy]

It is more likely they made a deal with western publishing then with Barks, company you work for owns your work, for example I used to produce music and once you sign it to a label you dont own it anymore, it doesnt matter that it is your work so if an even bigger label wants to sign it and make it bigger they deal with the original label, not with me, I presume this is how publishing works also so they probably bought it from western by my logic.
Barks could have been involved in it if maybe he bought the rights to characters later on. I know he had to get permission from Disney for making those paintings but thats for using Donald probably

[Scrooge MacDuck]

The thing is, copyright laws were initially meant to protect trademarks and individual works of art. The concept of a copyrighted *character* is something that stems from the modern idea of large, media-spanning entertainment franchises, and the law isn't really prepared for that.

[RobbK1]

If I remember correctly, the free-lance writer's contract stipulated that any characters created by the writer in a story sold by the free-lancer to the Disney franchisee (in my case, Oberon/Geillustreerde Pers/VNU/Sanoma and Gutenberghus/Egmont Serieforleget, and in Barks' case, Western Publishing/K.K. Publications/Whitman Publishing) would become the property of The Walt Disney Company (or whatever it was called then) AND the publisher. So, I don't believe that the publishers could ever use a character, created for a Disney comic book story, for their own uses independent of their affiliation with Disney as a publishing franchise holder. I'm guessing that Barks had signed away all rights to any characters he would create in his stories sold to Western, who, in their capacity as publication franchise holder for Disney comic books, in turn, signed away any rights to use characters used in those stories, independent of approval by The Walt Disney Company. I believe that Barks would have had to get permission from Disney, to even sell a painting he made of Smorgie The Bad (IF Disney had not rejected those pages in which he appeared, and they hadn't made him replace them with the Huey, Dewey and Louie story, "Hobblin' Gobblins"). I remember that Disney granted Barks blanket permission to draw, paint and sell paintings and drawings of the Disney characters he used in his Disney stories. Had they not done so, he would not have been allowed to sell them under the prevailing US copyright laws.

This all might become or have become more complicated, if the laws change, or a new authority establishes new laws that now govern that situation. I remember things changing regarding writers getting credit in the books where their stories are printed. We never got our names printed in the books in The Netherlands. But, in 1992, they started putting our names on the first page of our stories printed in books for Denmark, and all the other countries with Egmont franchises. I heard that that was due to Danish law, and also European law. I don't know if t was due to one or the other, or both. But, in 1995, and for a few years after, we no longer got our names in the books. Apparently, there was some confusion as to the wording or actual interpretation of those laws.  We started getting credits again in Egmont countries' books starting in 1998 or 1999.  I think that Ramapith might be able to enlighten us on what occurred in this situation, and the rights owned by The Disney company and its foreign publishing franchise holders.  In most Dutch books (other than the album collections for each artist), we still don't get any credits.

But, I doubt that the franchise holders end up with the rights to use of characters created for, and first used in stories sold to them for use in books published under the auspices of a Disney publishing franchise. I believe those characters instantly become property of Disney, unless otherwise stipulated in the franchise agreement. I'm sure that the standard free-lance writer contract has no clause like that to keep rights with the creator. I would be very surprised to find out that even Don Rosa and any other special writer/artist had such a contract.

(admin edit: formatting corrected)

[drakeborough]

Jan 17, 2017 0:17:03 GMT RobbK1 said:

In Dutch books, we still don't get written credits. I think that Ramapith might be able to enlighten us on what occurred in this situation, and the rights owned by The Disney company and its foreign publishing franchise holders.

What? I knew some editors waited too many years to credit the writers and artists, but I didn't realize that in 2017 some editors would still refuse to credit them.

And yes, it would be good if Ramapith or someone elese can help clarifying this issue. I mean, if this story is true (meaning neither Chendi nor the Papersera user who reported hearing it for Chendi made it up) there has to be some written source about the issue, be it a legal paper or a newspaper article or something.

[Ramapith]

I've never heard of ANY litigation between Barks (or Barks fans) and Disney vis-a-vis the characters.

To go further—Barks was interviewed constantly in the press both before and after DuckTales' debut on TV. I've read jillions of those interviews here, and if he ever expressed the idea that his self-created Duckburg characters were not Disney property, I must have missed it.

The first printings of the stories introducing Scrooge, Gladstone, Magica, etc. all carried exclusive Disney copyrights and were registered at the US Copyright Office. By statute-of-limitations rules, I believe Barks would have had to have trademarked the characters separately within several years of these copyrights to prevent ownership going to Disney.

But from everything I know about the contracts surrounding Disney and its licensees, I'm pretty sure Barks wouldn't have been allowed to do this. From my own experience, when I went professional with Disney comics (1992), I signed a Disney freelance contract that meticulously gave Disney all rights to any new properties I might create in the stories I worked on.

From all the Disney research I've done since then, I don't think the situation was very different in the 1940s and 50s.

[drakeborough]

Thanks for the explanation, even though it is similar to what I expected.

Still, if there was no such litigation I wonder when the rumor started.

[Ramapith]

Here's a 1964 trade journal listing showing what several major media distributors at the time considered their key properties.

Note that the Disney listing includes Scrooge. It shows how seriously Disney took its ownership of the character more than 20 years before DuckTales. (True: Gladstone and others are not there, but neither are the Pigs and Wolf or Humphrey Bear... this seems to be just the group Disney considered its heaviest hitters...)

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[deb]

Off Topic: on that list, I think that Screen Gems might have meant Top Cat and not Tom Cat...