| Tittel: | Diversity and overlapping IP rights in the comic world | | Ansvar: | Franziska Kaiser | | Forfatter: | Kaiser, Franziska  | | Materialtype: | Artikkel - elektronisk | | Signatur: | WIPO Magazine | | Utgitt: | Geneva : WIPO, 2020 | | Omfang: | S. 8-12 | | ISBN/ISSN: | 1564-7854 | | Serie: | WIPO Magazine ; 4/2020 | | Innhold: | Who is your favorite comic superhero? Batman? Wonder Woman? Black Panther? Comic superheroes are an integral part of contemporary pop culture and a multi-billion dollar global industry. New research by WIPO reveals that, over the last 40 years, Batman, Dracula and Spiderman are the top three most-used franchise characters for movies and video games in the United States, the world’s biggest media market. Franchises are derivative works which build on characters developed in original creative works for use in a variety of mediums.
The study, Batman forever? The economics of overlapping rights, explores how comic characters are protected under both copyright law (commonly used to protect creative works) and trademark law and what this means in economic and policy terms. For example, from a legal perspective, the overlapping of IP rights which arise from the use of both copyright and trademark law to protect comic characters is sometimes considered dysfunctional as rules laid out in both legal frameworks are not always consistent. And from an economic perspective, registering a comic character as a trademark can increase transaction costs for cross-media uses of characters, but may also help build the character’s brand across multiple sales channels.
The WIPO study, which analyzes the use of comic characters in the book, movie and video game publishing industries, explores how overlapping copyright and trademark rights affect the franchising of comic characters. Are they expanding opportunities for character use and media franchising or are they reducing them and causing a dip in content sales? | | Del av verk: | WIPO Magazine 4/2020 |
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