CREATe Working Paper 2013/9 (December 2013) Writing About Comics and Copyright Authors Ronan Deazley Jason Mathis University of Glasgow www.jasonmathis.ca
[email protected] [email protected] Initially released as a pre-publication edition privately printed for the authors, limited to a print run of 200 copies. CREATe Working Paper Series DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8379. This release was supported by the RCUK funded Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (CREATe), AHRC Grant Number AH/K000179/1. 1 WRITING ABOUT COMICS AND COPYRIGHT Ronan Deazley and Jason Mathis Copyright © 2013 Ronan Deazley and Jason Mathis [ii] For Moira and Ruby [iii] [iv] TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Comics scholarship and clearing rights 3 What is a ‘work’? 6 Insubstantial copying 12 Criticism and review 16 Current proposals for reform 20 Conclusion 23 30 Afterword / Manifesto 28 Notes [v] [1] [2] COMICS SCHOLARSHIP AND CLEARING RIGHTS Academics who research and write about the visual world often complain about the way in which copyright law can hinder their scholarly endeavours, and with good reason. Writing about visual work without reproducing that work is an impoverished exercise, for both writer and reader. But, reproducing visual material can trigger concerns on the part of the conscientious author or – more often – demands on the part of the publisher about the need to secure copyright permission. In this respect, comics scholarship is - ing rights for publication can be frustrating and time-consuming, andno different academic from publishers any other often field manage of visual the or cultural business studies.