Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

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Sunlight on Snow
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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by Sunlight on Snow »

That's a LOT of information, Greg! :thumb:

Thanks for taking the time and writing it all down. Very interesting.

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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by caxiotis »

greg wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 2:39:35 pmThe guy who wanted to make the copies of the VCB argued that he had permission from Bob Layton, but Bob Layton had no legal right to give permission at that time (or since).
I am sure Bob didn’t really give his response any thought. He has no skin in the game. Makes sense to not be part of the reproduction
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magnus20009
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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by magnus20009 »

caxiotis wrote: Sun Sep 06, 2020 10:18:12 pm
greg wrote: Fri Sep 04, 2020 2:39:35 pmThe guy who wanted to make the copies of the VCB argued that he had permission from Bob Layton, but Bob Layton had no legal right to give permission at that time (or since).
I am sure Bob didn’t really give his response any thought. He has no skin in the game. Makes sense to not be part of the reproduction
Agree. Bob probably should probably be left out of it. I see it more as the purchaser asking Bob when he was buying it if Bob minded whether he made copies or not and Bob saying sure. It would be like if I sold a CD or DVD back in the day and someone asked me if I cared after they bought it if they made copies. I could say sure, as it was their CD/DVD now and didn't impact me, nor would I have the ability to stop them if they wanted to, but they shouldn't be asking me in the first place to answer a question like that.

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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by nycjadie »

Is this accurate?
-Seaborn Adamson, megafan starts the Valiant Continuity Bible. He also has an amazing name.
-Seaborn, as far as I can see, died in 1996.
-At some point, the material was adopted by Valiant and certain pictures/artwork owned by Valiant were added.
-The content is solely about Valiant (i.e. no new content).
-Additional content may have been added by Valiant.
-Valiant did not purchase the rights to the content from Seaborn.
-Seaborn's estate still owns the copyright.

If that's the case, then Seaborn owns the copyright to any of the material he created. It's a reference work, and he would own the copyright on the wording and arrangement. The copyright would be sufficient so as to preclude anyone from publishing (i.e. copying) the work, including Valiant.

Valiant would presumably own the copyright on any of the images added, or any content added to the Bible, assuming they did. This would likely be considered a derivative copy of Seaborn's work, even though Valiant owns the characters.

So who can authorize copies of the work? Presumably Seaborn and Valiant, at least if the above is accurate. If you removed the logo and the pictures, it may be possible that the content is completely Seaborn's, and if that's the case, Valiant would have no rights in the work.

**************

My take on it (provided the above is accurate): Who cares? It's important to respect intellectual property rights. Today's society is based in part on them. However, what this thing really is is a fan project based on someone else's sandbox. Unless Valiant bought it, it's not Valiant's. They may have added to it, and so they might own a very small piece of it, but nobody is going to care how much they actually own. It's not financially worth it, and the people who added to the work probably don't care all that much. The Bible is also not worth anything, from a copyright perspective. Who is going to be upset over copying this and distributing it to fans? Likely nobody, and it's certainly not worth paying someone to send a C&D letter over. Only a real *SQUEE* at Valiant would get upset over this, and frankly, they are going to get more PR value from people like us even caring about these paper dinosaurs. It keeps us interested in the characters.

If anyone is going to be upset about this, it would be Seaborn as he put sweat into capturing and describing all this knowledge. However, he's been gone a long time and maybe, just maybe, he would delight in having this disseminated as a fan project. In fact, if he were to do it today, it might even be a wiki like at the Valiant Comics Database:
https://valiant.fandom.com/wiki/Seaborn_Adamson

**************

Signed,
Steve the cantankerous IP attorney

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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by magnusr »

nycjadie wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:50:12 am Is this accurate?
Very good question. Your list is probably correct, but I wonder if anyone knows for sure. Everyone agrees that the VCB was initiated by Seaborn, but one of the editorial texts in some Valiant books presented the VCB as an internal work. I've heard someone talk about contacting Seaborn's estate, but I have no idea what came out of that.

/Magnus

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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by magnusr »

Here's some quotes about the information gathered by Seaborn:
Eulogy in Acclaim comics wrote:Letter after letter would arrive, almost daily, chock full of information and corrections. All of them, thought-provoking, intellegent and always...respectful. After a time, the publisher decided that we'd be best served by making this "walking Valiant Encyclopedia" part of the team. Seaborn became the official Valiant Archivist.

Over the years, thousands of pages of information poured into the editorial offices. If you wanted to know the timeline of the Eternal Warrior, Seaborn would have a neatly bound folder on the subject. If you needed a list of every appearance of the Geomancers, "SeeBee" (as we affectionately nicknamed him) already has a list on file, and would send it faxing your way.
Jeff Gomez in the VFC wrote: Together we pieced together the continuity of the greatest calamity to strike the Valiant Earth... The Chaos Effect.... minute by minute! Our work can be found in the pages of the Valiant Voice, and in the time/date/place caption boxes of all Valiant books that bore the Chaos fractal.

... I edited his articles for "Previews" and "Advance Comics"
/Magnus

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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by nycjadie »

That’s is helpful, Magnus. We don’t know is Seaborn was paid by Valiant. If he was not, then the vast majority of the work is his, if not all of it. If he was paid, then portions of it might be Valiant’s. If Valiant contributed, then those portions might be theirs. Of course, if Seaborn edited those portions and included it, then he might own those portions as well.

Huge missing facts, but I’m guessing he probably was not paid, and that the copyright belongs to Seaborn.

If that’s the case, then the question is who will object to the use of the copyright? Chances are, nobody will. And then, what is the societal benefit of having it out there? So many songs are not distributed because people do not know where the rights are. We all lose out when those works are not out there or reinterpreted because of a legal scheme created for artists to be able to make money.

I’m in the reproduce camp, but that’s based on the absence of so many facts.

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Ryan
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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by Ryan »

Any scans or copies ever made of this? I would pay someone for an under the table one :gossip:

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Re: Valiant Continuity Bible.. where is it?

Post by Jrosen »

Ryan wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 10:30:31 pm Any scans or copies ever made of this? I would pay someone for an under the table one :gossip:
Me too


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