Keskustelujen arkisto

Hey! I opened this digest (the first in a long while) just to see what the
admin address was for switching from digest to normal, in the hope that at
least having the HEADERS visible will make me read some of this once in a
while and.... imagine my surprise at finding myself mentioned here!

At 19/07/99 18:12 +0200, Harry wrote:
>I've had a closer look to (Kriton's collection of) the Greek KOMIX
>magazines. It appears that they print a lot of articles straight from the
>internet, without credits (and presumably without premission of the writer).
>I was especially surprised to see Frank Stajano's articles about Romano
>Scarpa and Giorgio Cavazzano. I consider this a theft: Disney may own any
>picture with Disney characters, but they do not own articles written ABOUT
>Disney comics!

Well, indeed, I share your feeling: at least they could have sent me a copy
or two of the comic! ;-) But even just ASKING, or for heaven's sake TELLING
me about it, would have been better than nothing...

At any rate, when you write something like a book, in order to be able to
put Disney pictures in it you have to sign a disclaimer meaning basically
that they can do whatever they like with the rest of the book (including
for example reprinting bits of it, in a Greek magazine or in an Italian one
for that matter as has already happened, without crediting the original
author) and if you don't agree to this they don't give you permission to
use the pictures over which they own (c).

Since I didn't sign any such disclaimer for the web site, in theory they're
in breach of my (c) there, so in theory I could sue them; however in theory
they could also sue me for putting up Disney pics on said web site, despite
the fact that I credited and acknowledged all my sources (unlike them) so
we're sort of even ;-)

Still, it would be nicer if people recognised each other's work fairly. It
makes everybody happier when it happens, especially in a "gift economy"
such as this of comics fans where money rarely changes hands, even when one
writes entire books, and "warm feelings" and the esteem of your peers are
the primary currency (I'm talking about "fan information", not about the
comics themselves, of course: I am well aware that, there, a lot of money
does change hands!)

Frank (http://i.am/filologo.disneyano/) http://www.uk.research.att.com/~fms/

> At any rate, when you write something like a book, in order
> to be able to put Disney pictures in it you have to sign a
> disclaimer meaning basically that they can do whatever they
> like with the rest of the book (including for example
> reprinting bits of it, in a Greek magazine or in an Italian one
> for that matter as has already happened, without crediting
> the original author) and if you don't agree to this they don't
> give you permission to use the pictures over which they own (c).

Well. it's no solution for most writers, but if you feel uneasy about
letting Disney have all the rights for your book only because you had a few
illustrations in it, then you could try publishing it in Sweden.

If you write a book about Disney comics and use pictures according
to rather clear regulations, you don't need permission to use even
Disney pictures, and you don't have to transfer any rights to the
rest of your work either...

You see, the swedish laws permits you to quote even pictures for articles,
essays or other literary works.. So.. in a work about Disney Comics you
could use pictures to illustrate your point, without permission. Of course..
it's always polite and better to ask first anyway... ;-) And pictures
should always be used in moderation.

I'm sure other countries have similar laws...

> Since I didn't sign any such disclaimer for the web site, in
> theory they're in breach of my (c) there, so in theory I could sue them;
> however in theory they could also sue me for putting up Disney pics on
said web
> site, despite the fact that I credited and acknowledged all my sources
> (unlike them) so we're sort of even ;-)

Well.. it depends a bit... it depends where your site is located
(physically) and where you (the author) live... ;-)

Of course.. You'd had to get a good lawyer with experience in international
(C)opyright laws to really get an answer to this... It's a jungle out
there.. ;-)

Well.. it's not much to fuzz about, and if you really wanted to sue Disney,
Mondadori, Egmont or whatever, they could always emply a more expensive
lawyer than you could... ;-)

What I really *think* you SHOULD do is write the publishers and tell them in
a polite way that you love Disney comics, but ask them to ask you first
before printing your articles again, and that you would be happy if they
gave you your credits.. ;-)

Steamboat Willie

I wondered when Fethry Duck had his first apperance.
Any info appreciated.

Was he first created by Kinney/Hubbard in S64008, but first appeared in
Topolino #453 (according to Bellacera's HooZoo page)? Btw I couldn't find
this story in the INDUCKS.

Trygve

_______________________________________________________
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HI,

I'M A 'DISNEY COMIC' FAN FROM INDIA.
MY MAIN RESON TO JOIN THIS RING WAS TO FIND SOME GOOD FRIENDS ON THE NET.
I'M A BIG BSB (BACKSTREET BOYS) FAN AND HAVE STARTED A SMALL E-MAIL RING
WELL ITS A GREAT FUN ACTIVITY ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS:

MAKE FIVE COPIES OF THIS E-MAIL AND MAIL IT TO FIVE DIFFERENT FRIENDS OF YOUR.
TELL THEM TO DO THE SAME THEN ADD YOUR NAME IN THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL LIST:

1. (Email removed)
2.(WILL BE YOUR E-MAIL ADDY AND THIRD THAT OF YOU FRIENDS)

WHEN YOU RECIEVE THISSEND AN E-MAIL TO ME SO THAT I CAN KNOW
HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE ENTERED MY LIST.

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO JOIN TO JOIN THIS RING THEN PLEASE SEND THIS E-MAIL BACK
TO ME WITHIN FIVE DAYS.

IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IN THIS PLEASE BE FREE TO WRITE TO ME.

BYE

Hello,

> Kriton wrote:

> We also talked about Harry's favorite subject, indexing. I
> was almost convinced to contribute information about Komix,
> and we discussed the possibility of my doing some kind of
> data entry program in Java, for the use of people like me,
> who are completely dumbfounded by the complexity of the
> database's format. (Nothing is definite yet, but it sounds
> like a neat project.)

For you and for anyone else interested in indexing issue of his
country, I can offer my help in providing an excel sheet where to
enter the data, without worrying for the correct I.N.D.U.C.K.S.
format.

This standard sheet is already used by some Italian indexers, and
is auto-converted in a format compatible for my DB, and then for
I.N.D.U.C.K.S.

Using it you won't have to worry for the data layout, except some
obvious things such as inserting e.g. the number of pages of a
story under the column intitled "pages"....

Since we (=Italians) are using it to index our issues our work
speed up a lot, so...

You can find it at

http://www.confor.it:2222/disney/downl.htm

and feel free to ask me for any explanation.

- Paolo
http://i.am/castagno

From: (Email removed)
>>>If you write a book about Disney comics and use pictures according
to rather clear regulations, you don't need permission to use even
Disney pictures, and you don't have to transfer any rights to the
rest of your work either...

You don't seem to be aware that the Disney corporation chooses not to believe in these rather clear regulations, and has all the lawyers and money needed to make certain that everyone in an American court of law will see it their way. And they also say they automatically fully own anything that contains an image of thier properties, without paying for it. This is not quite easilly enforced outside of America where the law is on the side of the party with the $, but I suspect that Disney could still make it quite uncomfortable for anyone who does not agree with their views regardless of the country.
Still, the KOMIX editors do such superb work in the presentation of their Disney comics that I'll mention to them that it would still be polite if they asked permission to use fan-writing, and that it is not Disney property free to their usage as are stuff like my texts which have already been previously printed in other Disney-licensed books.

Aside from that, I just returned from Luxembourg and leave again on another trip tomorrow! That leaves me little time to give any sort of report on the "BD Contern" in Luxembourg. I will say that Contern is the small village near Luxembourg City which hosts this annual convention, fashioned after the much (!) larger French Angouleme convention. Comic dealers set up booths throughout the streets of the village (and the weather was good)(not a humid 95 F / 35 C like it is here right now!), and there were many stands selling good eats (probably run by the villagers?). The artists and more dealers set up tables in the community sports arena / exposition hall. Me, myself, I sat for two days drawing Duck faces for Duckfans, 7 hours non-stop each day. Lotsa Duck fans there! And lots of nice folks who run the convention, whom I thank for the invitation and the hospitality (even though none of them are on this ML).
Most folks in Luxembourg read the German Disney comics, with the rest reading the French ones. Therefore, that new German Rosa album with the wrong cover was quite evident during the show, so I saw it for myself. And it's not just the wrong cover -- the wrong inside-covers were also used, showing all Barks art -- certainly nothing wrong with the art, but those inner-covers belong on the Barks Library editions. Also, the cover art was rather altered by computer technicians -- the line work was pixelated and blurred (at least if you knew what the original looked like) and the colorist decided to "correct" all the art by adding lines to make it easier to color... you know, closing gaps and bridging spaces, to take shortcuts in filling areas with color. The fluffy feather on the Knight's helmet was all closed up and "hardened"... and since that's where the hidden "D.U.C.K." happened to be, it was all run together with the surrounding linework. Anyway, please know that what you s!
ee!
on that cover is not what I drew but a computer's opinion of what I drew. Sorry. This issue, they say, was late -- perhaps they had to switch printers and ran into a whole new load of problems or confusions?
But when I returned home I found the new Egmont issues with the first part of my "Escape from Forbidden Valley" story, and the coloring looks very nice! I especially liked the coloring on the flashback scenes. And they colored the dinosaurs brightly, as I suggested. I wish I could read what the various translators did with the contents of $crooge's trinket-bag which contained the worthless stuff he was going to trade to natives. I had it as 1950's American kitsch, like Hula Hoops, Davy Crockett caps, yoyos, and used Super Snooper comics.
To you Finns -- you won't see this story until I visit you in November, at which time it will appear in AKU ANKKA with the usual special for-Finland-only cover that the Finnish publisher asks me to do for each of my stories.
Okay -- I'm off on another trip. ZOOOOOOM-------------->

PAOLO:

> For you and for anyone else interested in indexing issue of his
> country, I can offer my help in providing an excel sheet where to
> enter the data, without worrying for the correct I.N.D.U.C.K.S.
> format.

I've already downloaded it, and will probably use it for indexing KOMIX.
(I'll send you my questions in private.)

The reason I suggested using Java is that it's freely available and
runs everywhere, unlike other solutions, so that everybody can use it,
not only users of a particular platform.

On the other hand, having a spreadsheet template sounds like a good
idea, as there are various formats that can be loaded by all sorts of
spreadsheets, and not just excel. I suspect that the Disney comics
database format is one of these formats!

Kriton (e-mail: (Email removed))
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis
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"Things are only impossible until they're not."
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