[Greenskar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Abbadon

Not how copyright works- DC owns the copyright for a hundred years as well as all rights, unless they decide to sell them.
With Watchmen (as with Spider-Man) a movie studio leases the rights to make movies/TV for a given number of years before the rights revert to the owners- in Spidey's case, 20 centry Fox has liscencing on Spidey for two more years- which is why they made the upcoming movie- use it or not, Marvel gets it back at the lease's end..and since Marvel makes it's own movies now, they wont renew that contract with Fox.

Consider stuff like Rom- Mattell owns the rights to the character (they has liscenced t to marvel for the comic book), and they have done nothing with him in like 25 years...but it's still theirs.

You may be thinkning of defending copyright- which requires "vigorus defense" of a property, lest it become public domain.

You're right about that and I'm aware of how copyrights work. While I can only admit to not knowing the specific details concerning the language of the Watchmen contract without reading it personally, it has always been my understanding that there was a reversion clause. This clause basically stated to the effect that DC owned it only for the time they published it.

This language was also part of the V for vendetta series as well if I remember correctly and also why Moore left DC based on an interview I once read. He felt swindled because he believed that clause would grant him and gibbons full rights eventually and didn't realize DC never intended for it to EVER go out of print.