Las Vegas Review-Journal: The Batmobile, the indispensable crime fighting vehicle driven by comic book hero Batman, has enough distinct character traits to qualify for copyright protection, a U.S. appeals court has ruled.
The 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a ruling against a manufacturer of replica Batmobiles.
7 comments:
I'm honestly surprised the Batmobile was not already copyrighted. The Batmobile is such an iconic part of Batman, and I am surprised it was not already protected. When I think about it, there have been a number of times I have seen a vehicle on the streets of Pittsburgh and New York and thought to myself "wow, that looks like the Batmobile!" Now, I guess many of those batmobile wannabe vehicles will have to be more careful. I would be interested to see what exact features of the batmobile are copyrighted. There are so many sports cars out there that may share some of the same qualities with the batmobile. Will sports car companies need to be careful not to use the features of the batmobile when designing future cars? What if someone uses a batmobile feature without even knowing it?
I imagine this copyright must be very specific, since many of sports cars look alike. I also wonder if the designs of various other sports cars (i.e. Porche, Ferrari) are copyrighted or are simply patented. I wonder why the creators of the batmobile felt they needed to copyright the design instead of patenting or trademarking it.
I'm with Jess I am mostly just surprised this was not already a thing. Just like Batman himself the bat-mobile is easily recognizable and trying to sell replicas is clearly profiting on an idea owned by someone else. I realize it is hard to feel bad for the poor mega corporation but they came up with the idea just like any artist comes up with theirs. The only downside is that this might open some floodgates. I am not sure why car designs were previously not allowed copyright but someones is going to try to win it now. All the luxury car brands are going to start trying to get the rights to specific ideas. The law must be there for a reason, I wonder what it is.
On a side note "Happy Birthday" is finally, and I mean FINALLY, in the public domain. Fights over Mickey Mouse and other such identities are silly but the company has a leg to stand on. Happy Birthday had such a ridiculous and confusing background that it is amazing anyone was ever able to claim copyright. Excited to see it being used on every TV-show for the next 5-10 years.
I am inclined to agree with the defense attorney’s position that “The car is not a character, the car is a car”. If it was a car with an AI or that regularly talked and displayed common traits throughout its production history, maybe it would be worthwhile of copyright. No body is arguing that Data from star-trek is a thing not a person and not subject to copyright, but the batmobile hasn’t maintained its overall shape or theme in any of its iterations, it was once navy blue, not black. And in the new movie franchise, it is a tank, not a car. I can understand Warner Bros deffening the trademark for things in the batman franchise, but this is a real hit to the fan culture. I am curious as to the terms of the copyright agreement and if it prohibits any sort of reproduction, does it extend to cosplay and conventions, or are they only targeting people making money off of the batmobile.
Like Jess and Isaac said, I went into this article really surprised that the Batmobile wasn’t already copyrighted. After all its practically inseparable from the character of Batman. That being said I agree with Chris in thinking the defense attorney has a point that “the car is a car.” Its gone through so many different iterations that I don’t even know what DC is claiming to have copyright protection for. Is it for one specific version of Batmobile? In which couldn’t custom garages like the one in the article can always model cars off a different one? Or is it for the idea of the Batmobile as a whole? Either way if the law is that you can’t copyright cars I’m not sure how DC pulled this off. It’s a car, not a character, and it doesn’t even have a regular appearance/set of abilities. If the Batmobile was one specific thing that had some claim to being a character (AI, some kind of sentience somehow) then this ruling would make more sense. But as it is it just seems to be a case of the side with an absurd amount of money getting what it wants.
I am seeing a lot of copyright articles this week, all are relevant but surprising. Like everyone else has said, I thought the bat mobile was already copyrighted. I assumed that whoever owns the rights to Batman, most likely DC I would think, Would then and has been allowing others to make iterations. Although I understand that Christian bales bat mobile and Adam wests bat mobile are not the same car, they are both the same concept and are used in the same story. if others are able to make iterations of Batman and pay for it then it makes sense that the bat mobile has to as well. I would think that maybe the batman logo would have to be somewhere on the car for it to count but then again Christian bales looked more like a military tank and had no batman logos on it that I could see. I think for all of these reasons there will continue to be arguments about what is copyrightable and what is not, i would just hope that people use common sense when determining if someone copied it or not.
The Batmobile is clearly one of the most iconic set pieces in movie history. I have personally seen a replica at Six Flags New England. It doesn’t surprise me that there are people duplicating this crime-fighting car. It definitely makes a statement when you are cruising down the street in that flashy vehicle. It is a bummer that people can no longer do this but it is understandable that a DC comic doesn’t want their flag ship car hitting the production line. Things like that are meant to stay on the screen, so I can’t disagree with the courts decision. If Towle has the talent to build a Batmobile to scale, I don think he will have difficultly coming up with a similar design to replicate or better yet come up with his own original design. For now, all those Batman lovers out there will have to live with watching their favorite superhero drive his car on the TV screen.
I completely understand the court ruling of why the Batmobile falls under copyright protection. It truly is an iconic symbol of the character Batman and in some cases acts as a side kick in solving much of the conflict Batman faces. But this whole lawsuit poses an interesting question on what it means to be a character? If you think about the movie Cars every character is an automobile, but yet they have “life” or a suggested artificial intelligence and an awareness of their surrounds whereas in the comic book the bat mobile does not have either of the characteristics. If a character is still being defined as having those two many traits that resemble humanity than I understand where the company owner is coming from because by that definition the Batmobile really is nothing more than an automobile at its core. At the same time DC doesn’t want to lose out on profits and if they see a demand for a product that is going to increase their cash flow they are going to make sure they are the only one receiving the benefits.
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