APPENDIX B

A Comic Creator’s Guide to Protecting Ideas

 

THE LAW OF IDEAS

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Without a doubt, a copyright is the best way to protect a comic book property from being stolen. However, a creator may have only an idea for a comic book or graphic novel—a concept that has yet to be turned into a breathtaking work of sequential art—and copyright law does not protect ideas. In fact, even outside of copyright law ideas can be very hard to protect legally: the law starts with the presumption that ideas are free for anyone to use.

Generally, for a creator to protect an idea when she is pitching it to a publishing company or another artist, the idea must ...

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