That’s an interesting point I hadn’t thought about, who owns your characters? As a book author, you might sell the rights to a book to make a movie… But the sequel books you are still writing, or may have already published still have those characters. You would like to hope that Netflix wouldn’t transform your European character into a African tribal leader and completely change their world view… Except that they don’t have a very good track record on that. Next thing you know, your two side characters are in a gay relationship And it’s all woke as hell. It makes me wonder if an author should trademark their characters, and then when they sell the rights to the book, the studio still must also buy temporary rights to portray the characters accurately in the movie.🤷♂️
It really is interesting, especially with works staying under copyright for so long now. The creators of those characters aren't even the ones making these decisions, but corporations, betraying longtime fans. It's a lot messier question that it should be
It’s pretty crazy. It seems they most often do this with deceased authors, or companies like Marvel who bought the rights from the original creators. Then it’s just paying the family money with an all-inclusive contract. Or corporate contracts.
I wonder, for example, what George RR Martin would’ve done if they turned half of his characters black? Or inserted random Chinese bystanders like Amazon prime did with their Lord of the rings prequel.
The more I think about it, the more I might want to trademark my characters separately so if any of my books were to be negotiated for, I could separately insist they cannot alter my characters without paying for the rights and permission to do so outside with the initial contract.
That’s an interesting point I hadn’t thought about, who owns your characters? As a book author, you might sell the rights to a book to make a movie… But the sequel books you are still writing, or may have already published still have those characters. You would like to hope that Netflix wouldn’t transform your European character into a African tribal leader and completely change their world view… Except that they don’t have a very good track record on that. Next thing you know, your two side characters are in a gay relationship And it’s all woke as hell. It makes me wonder if an author should trademark their characters, and then when they sell the rights to the book, the studio still must also buy temporary rights to portray the characters accurately in the movie.🤷♂️
It really is interesting, especially with works staying under copyright for so long now. The creators of those characters aren't even the ones making these decisions, but corporations, betraying longtime fans. It's a lot messier question that it should be
It’s pretty crazy. It seems they most often do this with deceased authors, or companies like Marvel who bought the rights from the original creators. Then it’s just paying the family money with an all-inclusive contract. Or corporate contracts.
I wonder, for example, what George RR Martin would’ve done if they turned half of his characters black? Or inserted random Chinese bystanders like Amazon prime did with their Lord of the rings prequel.
The more I think about it, the more I might want to trademark my characters separately so if any of my books were to be negotiated for, I could separately insist they cannot alter my characters without paying for the rights and permission to do so outside with the initial contract.