Dear James Rogers,
I enjoyed your response to the Red Harvest Opera(!?) post,
and to my rambling Intellectual Property jag response. And in
many ways I think your amusing attitude is right.
But the issue of intellectual property rights, particularly
on the web and emerging digital technologies, is no laughing
matter---at least not to the mad hatters who have spent a
long time and a great deal of effort putting the pieces of
rights back together again. Of those old periodical
properties from which so much great art and fiction, and
popular entertainment genres originated.
For instance, on Black Mask, I acquired the copyrights to the
title (and the the logo) from Fred Dannay--the plotting half
of Ellery Queen who kept the magazine alive after Popular
Publications dropped it in 1951. Dannay was a friend and
champion of Hammett, and during the red scare 50's kept
Hammett's Black Mask stories alive in a series of Dell
Continental Op collections--when no one else would touch
Hammett. Because Dannay felt there should be a place for
darker, more gritty fiction in his amazingly successful, but
somewhat sedate Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, he acquired
just the rights to the title and included Black Mask Magazine
within EQ Magazine in order to have a frame to present
stories by Woolrich and Hammett and noire friends.
I acquired the those rights from him for Adrian Lopez in 1973
for our 1974 newsstand edition of the magazine. At that time
the new owners of Popular Publications owned all the rights
to the art and fiction.
(Henry Steeger still alive and well at the time, had sold
Argosy and his pulp holdings--but was always available to
reminisce about the old days.) Then the Filipacci Group came
to America to revive Life Magazine as a weekly with two
different editions, and in their acquisitive madness bought
Popular Publications, primarily for Argosy, Camera 35, and
Railroad Magazine.
Joel Frieman, now owner of Argosy Communications--and the
proprietor of book rights to many of Popular's pulps (Dime
Detective) and i joined forces and negotiated the acquisition
of the rights to the Popular holdings during a confusing time
for the French Filipacci Group who were scurrying to sell off
holdings and get out of America to lick their wounds. I did
consulting for Filipacci, handled rights, helped sell
Railroad Magazine, and worked on a European detective fiction
radio show for one of their executives. In return for
services, and other consideration, I acquired my additional
rights to Black Mask, and the magazine, periodical and serial
rights to almost all of Popular's pulps.
Joel and I had a bit of wrangling on our contractual divvying
up of the rights from Popular; I had to go back to Adrian
Lopez and acquire the rights to Black Mask that I had
negotiated with Dannay--I did the original acquisition, but
Adrian (who owned a slew of magazines at the time) paid the
check. So there was a bit of wrangling with Adrian, but in
1981 I closed my deal with him, with Filipacci, with Joel
(mostly).
And then I had to sue Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in Federal
court because they came out with a trade paperback "New"
Black Mask Magazine using my logo. They acknowledged my
ownership, I granted them a retroactive license which they
published in issue 8, we settled out of court in the middle
of litigation. And then they stopped publishing.
Around the same time, before i could clear my head, Hearst
brought out a fine book, The Boys From Black Mask, in which
my history publishing the magazine was referenced. BUT THEY
DECIDED NOT ONLY TO USE MY BLACK MASK LOGO, BUT ALSO A
NEWSSTAND WITH NOTHING BUT BLACK MASK MAGAZINES DISPLAYED FOR
SALE ON THE BOOK'S COVER.
I had copy written the hand drawn logo and the magazine cover
art. I was back in Federal court. Ironically Richard Dannay,
Fred Dannay's son was one of the lawyers representing Hearst.
Again we settled out of court in the middle of litigation.
Richard was kind enough to tell me after the case was
finished that he remembered when his father sold me the, they
had discussed my 1974 edition of Black Mask, which I of
course sent along to Dannay, and well...Richard was very ice
about the we thing and was happy I won the case, regretted he
and his dad had not kept more copies of the original Black
Masks, and so on.
Now this long story may have bored you even more than my
intellectual ramblings to Sean, but at minimum I hope it
reveals why estates, and people like me and Joel can be
pretty touchy about infringement.
I still think a courtesy call to Jane Gelfman, agent for
Hammett's estate, is appropriate for Sean.
By the way, Richard Greene of Crippen & Landru
Publishers, at the suggestion of Richard, published a tribute
collection to Ellery Queen, The Tragedy of Errors, which
features the complete scenario for an Ellery Queen novel
written by Fred Dannay, but never novelized by his
cousin,Manfred B. Lee (as was their operating procedure on
every novel they wrote together) because of Lee's early
death.
Keith
keithdeutsch@earthlink.net
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