ValiantFans.com Board - Since 2004

I hate to bump an old thread, but I want to clarify that the Defiant comic Wardancer is owned by Alan Weiss.

Broadway Video (the parrent of Broadway Comics) was bought out by Golden Books, which was then purchased by Random House (publishing) and Classic Media (film and TV). Thats the same deal that included the Gold Key characters. Dreamworks now ownes Classic Media.

I wonder what amount of money it would take just to pry away the Defiant and Broadway properties. They hold such a niche market that I can't see someone like Universal/DreamWorks or the like ever doing something with them. It's a really shame that they are tied in with the Gold Key characters.

If someone cared to look into and Universal cared to sell it, one could conceivably unite Defiant, Broadway AND Gold Key properties...

I thought those 3 properties were already owned by the same group? It seems that different people keep using the Gold Key license, so there is interest there or they are using them to keep the copyright active.

Do I have that right? Isn't there some copyright law that essentially if you don't use it, you lose it? If so, I wonder how long it would be before they lost the rights to Defiant and Broadway? Or course, maybe I just made this up.

You are correct. I was referencing it more because it doesn't seem the owners of these properties even know they have them or care, but an industrious individual (Shooter? Dino? You?) could swoop in and purchase them in an attempt to start up a new shared universe.

I also believe there is still some debate over who owns what rights. There was at one point some confusion over publishing (Random House) vs. entertainment (Classic Media, now Dreamworks) rights for the GK characters. So I'm not certain everything is even all in one place.

And while you do have to renew copyrights for the purposes of using certain names for books, tv, movies, video games, etc, and renew TMs, I don't believe you need to renew IPs. For example, one guy owns the Atlas Comics Character IPs, but not the copyright to the name "Atlas Comics" (which is owned by Dynamite (sucks!) (sucks!) (sucks!)). However, they can't use those characters without licensing them (much to their chagrin, I'm sure). That is why Dino and co. were able to purchase the VALIANT IPs following Acclaim's bankruptcy.

In the past there were laws requiring renewal, which is what led to many Golden Age characters falling into the public domain.

There’s just a ton of individually owned IPs out there too: The Spirit, Atlas Comics, Kirby-Verse (Silver Star, Captain Victory, etc.), Simon & Kirby heroes (Fighting American, etc.), Tower/Wally Wood (THUNDER Agents), Peter Cannon...Thunderbolt! (owned by the Morisi estate). These all see the light of day from time to time as people’s estates license them out, but I often think about what it would be like to gobble them all up and create a shared universe out of it all.