Letter From DC Comics Legal Department
(5/21/97)
Barry Dreyfus:
Admin@drynet.com
Dear Mr. Dreyfus:
DC Comics is the owner of all rights, including copyright, in the
comic book publications, Superman, Adventure Comics, Superboy,
Flash, Brave and the Bold, Batman, Detective Comics, and Lois Lane
as well as the owner of all rights, including trademark rights, in
the titles thereof and the characters depicted
therein.
Your unauthorized reproduction, distribution and display of
selected issues of these comic books well as other DC comic books
online at http://www.drynet.com/comics/index.html hosted by
TierraNet therefore constitutes a violation of our rights,
including copyright and trademark rights, unfair competition and a
misappropriation of our valuable property rights.
While we appreciate your interest in sharing our comic books with
the public, as the copyright owner of these books, we have the
exclusive right to determine how they may be reproduced and
distributed to the public. As you may know, we periodically
reprint our older comic books in collected and archive editions
which we make available for sale to the public and we maintain our
own web sites and other online sites including one on America
Online. If and when we wish to make our older books available
online is up to us.
Your analogy to a public library is not accurate. While readers
may be able to read one of our older comic books at a library, only
one person (or perhaps a few if they read over the original
borrower's shoulder) can read that comic book at a single time. If
a library wants to allow all of its patrons to read the same book
simultaneously, which is more analogous to what you are doing
although still on a lesser scale than what you are doing, the
library would have to purchase hundreds if not thousands of copies
of the comic book, and DC Comics, as the copyright owner of such
book, would receive the appropriate compensation from
such sale.
To make matters worse and to further distinguish your web site from
a public library, it appears that you are reproducing, distributing
and displaying our copyrighted works online for commercial purposes
as evidenced by the inclusion of banner advertisements on your web
site including one for Retro-10 Anti Wrinkle Skin
Cream.
Accordingly, we demand that you immediately: (1) remove all of our
comic books from your web site; (2) cease and desist from further
reproducing, distributing or displaying any of our comic books
online or in any other manner; and (3) confirm by e-mail to me at
Jay_Kogan@dccomics.com or by traditional mail to DC Comics Legal
Department, 1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 that any and all
unauthorized reproduction, distribution and use of our properties
by you have ceased and will not be repeated in the future.
Furthermore, if you are inclined to resolve this matter amicably,
we demand that you provide us with the following information within
ten business days of this e-mail: (1) a complete list of all our
comic books that you have reproduced on your web site, including
the initial date of posting and the date removed, if applicable;
(2) the number of visitors to your site; (3) the number of visitors
to your site that have viewed our comic books on an issue-by-issue
basis; (4) the number of advertisements that have been included on
your web site; (5) the total revenues that you have received from
the sale of such advertisements; and (6) a detailed description of
any other compensation, financial or otherwise, that you have
received in connection with your web site.
Finally, be advised that we will consider any continued or further
reproduction, distribution or display of our comic books by you
online or in any other manner to be a willful infringement of our
rights entitling us to increased statutory damages
under the law.
This letter is not intended to be a complete statement of the facts
or the relevant law and is without prejudice to any of our rights
or remedies, all of which are expressly reserved.
Sincerely,
Jay Kogan
DC Comics
Director of Legal Affairs