Bill Willingham Sends Fables Into the Public Domain
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For those of you who are not aware, Fables was fairly popular series published by DC Comics about fairy tale creatures living in modern America. It led to several spin-off series and video game, The Wolf Among Us.
Legally per the terms of his contract with DC, Willingham retained full rights to the Fables story and characters as his intellectual property. DC kept going behind his back with releases and stories, and Willingham lacked the resources to mount a full-scale legal battle.
Thus, because he has the right to give ownership of Fables to whoever he chooses, and because of his own philosophy on the copyright system, Willingham released his work into the public domain. Now anyone can create works with those characters and stories; DC no longer has a monopoly.
What an absolute Chad.
Intellectual property is basically a con job. Owning a man's labour without paying him is no different from slavery.