Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
Thanks for the info, Jerome and Bev. I don't practice copyright infringement, but I was still curious about the case.
Reading that letter I get the impression that his strategy was one of a preponderance of evidence that might work in his favor. Kind of lame approach in my opinion, but he seemed genuinely committed to his father's wishes so he was doing all he could in that pursuit. Very cool of you, Jerome to post that letter and, Bev for the verdict info. Kind of cool to see how it all went down and was finally resolved.
Yes, Bev and Jerome, thanks very much for posting. I'm glad it is now all resolved.
ETA: and thank you Br!an for your informed insight into the process! Fascinating reading.
“If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Looking for SubPress Lettered::
Angel's Game and Prisoner of Heaven (Zafon)
Ilium (Simmons)
Br!an deserves the credit (along with Bev) for keeping the thread informative. I did nothing (except for the brilliant legal strategy of doing nothing).
What an entire rollercoaster this all was!
That was actually the very legal strategy you should have employed.
The most amusing part of the letter DuBay sent you was, "Anything that you learn or read in this letter is confidential. You agree to this by reading on." That statement has no legal basis and is demonstrative of DuBay's lack of understanding which led to the suit in the first place.
"One day you're going to figure out that everything they taught you was a lie."
Here is the final order granting King's motion for summary judgment.
The judge first explains the way the court will approach the case and presents case law precedent.
He begins his analysis on page 11.
Spoiler:
"One day you're going to figure out that everything they taught you was a lie."
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CLUB STEPHEN KING (french website about STEPHEN KING, since 1992) : on : Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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Good god! I loved reading through all that, though (I especially laughed when I read through the actual official description of this Restin Dane character for the, uh, court decision bit, thinking to myself God, this sounds more like Booster Gold and Rip Hunter and the Time Masters, and then like the very next footnote was remarking on the general similarity to Rip Hunter LMAO) and I'm glad it's at least over and done with.
Stephen King Wants $1.2M After Beating 'Dark Tower' IP Suit
Law360 (March 19, 2019, 9:02 PM EDT) -- Stephen King asked a Florida federal court Monday to award him $1.17 million that he incurred fending off claims that his "Dark Tower" books ripped off a comic book series...
Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
I hope he prevails.
https://www.courthousenews.com/copyr...-11th-circuit/
The copyright holder of a ‘70s comic book hero asked an 11th Circuit panel Thursday to revive a lawsuit accusing bestselling author Stephen King of cribbing elements of the character to create the famous gunslinger protagonist of “The Dark Tower” book series.
Benjamin DuBay sued King and “The Dark Tower” publisher Simon & Schuster in 2017 for allegedly ripping off The Rook, a comic character created by DuBay’s uncle and two other artists in 1976. Dubay also sued Marvel Entertainment, which licensed a series of graphic novels based on “The Dark Tower,” and Sony Pictures Entertainment, which distributed the 2017 “The Dark Tower” movie.
First appearing in a 1977 horror/fantasy comic magazine titled “Eerie, Vol. 82,” The Rook, also known as Restin Dane, is a wealthy inventor who travels through time and fights monsters.
An attorney for DuBay told a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based appeals court Thursday that the similarities between The Rook and King’s time-traveling “The Dark Tower” protagonist, Roland Deschain, are undeniable.
“Roland is the second coming” of The Rook, Florida attorney Robby Cook argued on behalf of DuBay, explaining that the characters are both gunslingers who are closely associated with birds and who travel through “the space-time continuum.”
But Vincent Cox of Ballard Spahr, an attorney for the defendants, argued that King had already created many elements of the Roland Deschain character by 1977.
According to court documents, King has said that he began developing Roland Deschain, also known as the Gunslinger, beginning in 1970. His work continued over the next three decades. The final novel in the seven-part “Dark Tower” series was published in 2004.
Although DuBay has acknowledged that King’s manuscript for “The Dark Tower “may have predated The Rook’s publication, Cook argued Thursday that King transformed the Roland Deschain character to become more like The Rook over time.
In a 2019 ruling in King’s favor, U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger found that the similarities between Roland and The Rook start and stop with their basic classification as “adventure-seeking protagonists.”
Unlike The Rook, King’s gunslinger is an anti-hero who makes “ethically ambiguous” choices and lives in a post-apocalyptic parallel universe where he searches for the Dark Tower, a place which serves as “the linchpin of a time and space continuum,” according to the ruling.
Schlesinger found that the characters’ motivations and actions are dissimilar, pointing out that while The Rook is “upbeat and motivated by a desire to correct history, and make things better,” Roland is a brooding character who “kills in cold blood” and sacrifices those around him for his own benefit.
U.S. Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, a Donald Trump appointee, noted the differences between the two characters in Thursday’s hearing, mentioning that The Rook is described by DuBay as “a diplomat” and a “hero” while Roland massacres children and sexually assaults a female character.
“It seems to me that at their essences, they’re pretty different people,” Newsom said.
Cox told the panel that DuBay is merely pointing to “the most banal elements” of the characters to draw generalized similarities and is ignoring the traits that make the characters distinctive.
“They’re playing word games about what things are similar. For instance, the insistence that Roland is a time traveler. When you read the books, what Roland is doing is he’s going between parallel universes that are not synchronized in time. He doesn’t have a time machine as The Rook does,” Cox said. “You have to look at the specific element that makes that character who he or she is. That has to be the way that these kinds of analyses are performed.”
Newsom was joined on the panel by U.S. Circuit Judges Beverly Martin, a Barack Obama appointee, and Lisa Branch, another Trump appointee. The panel did not indicate when it would reach a decision in the case.
DuBay is a slow learner. He's lost at every turn.
He keeps trying to re-litigate the case, but the courts won't let him. In the circuit court's Order on Motion for Relief from Judgment, the court ruled against DuBay and ended with, ""The Man Who Time Forgot!" will not soon be forgotten --- but he is out of this Court."
The appellate court has a very limited purview. It will look at the legal and procedural issues. It will not re-litigate the case.
"One day you're going to figure out that everything they taught you was a lie."
This is just pathetic.Although DuBay has acknowledged that King’s manuscript for “The Dark Tower “may have predated The Rook’s publication, Cook argued Thursday that King transformed the Roland Deschain character to become more like The Rook over time.
A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.
My Collection
Novelist Stephen King persuaded a federal appeals court Tuesday to uphold his victory over claims that the protagonist of King’s “magnum opus,” the Dark Tower series, was “substantially similar” to a comic book hero known as “The Rook.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a ruling by Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger, who tossed the copyright infringement case from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in 2019, granting summary judgment against Benjamin DuBay, nephew of The Rook’s creator.
The lawsuit also targeted King’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, and several media companies affiliated with...
>>>Source
Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
This bullshit went all the way to the Supreme Court??
https://www.law360.com/newyork/artic...t-stephen-king
Would be interested in reading the full article, if someone has access to it and can share in private messages
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CLUB STEPHEN KING (french website about STEPHEN KING, since 1992) : on : Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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https://www.dbllawyers.com/dubay-v-k...yright-battle/
THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES DENIES PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT IN CASE CONCERNING TIME TRAVELING, KNIFE-WEILDING, WESTERN ATTIRED HEROES WITH KNIGHTLY HERITAGE
In late 2021, The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from Benjamin DuBay, the nephew of William DuBay, the latter being the creator of a comic book character known as Restin Dane who was featured in a comic book series called The Rook in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Benjamin DuBay allegedly received an assignment of William DuBay’s copyright interest in The Rook.
The Rook chronicled the tales of Dane, a time-traveling traditional comic book hero who is a wealthy scientist and inventor living in a rook chess piece-shaped home known as “Rook Manor” in Arizona. Dane develops his own time machines shaped like rook chess pieces and battle villains. The Rook comic book series sold more than five (5) million copies from 1977 to 1983.
Stephen King is a well-known author that wrote The Dark Tower, which is a series of novels and a novella published between 1982 and 2012 concerning Roland Deschain, a loner anti-hero chasing a Dark Tower, which is the nexus that ties worlds and dimensions together. The Dark Tower was licensed for graphic novels and was adapted into a major motion picture in 2017.
DuBay sued King for copyright infringement and lost on a motion for summary judgment at the trial court level before appealing to the Eleventh Circuit. Among other things, DuBay claimed that King had access to The Rook series and that The Dark Tower was substantially similar to The Rook given that Dane and Deschain were substantially similar as they: (1) had similar names, (2) interacted with towers that are integral to time travel, (3) have bird companions, (4) are marked by knightly characteristics, (5) travel back in time to save a young boy who becomes a gunslinger, (6) wear Western garb, (7) survive a fictionalized Alamo, and (8) use knives. DuBay further argued that Dane was the first character which combined those elements into a distinctive and original character and that King copied him with the Deschain character.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with DuBay.
First, it noted that character names are not afforded copyright protection.
Second, it noted that although the Dane and Deschain characters shared similarities in having knightly heritage, time travel, western attire, fictionalized Alamo histories and wielded knives, such similarities were merely scènes à faire, which are general themes that are unprotectable by copyright.
Third, the Eleventh Circuit analyzed the copyright protectable Dane and Deschain similarities related to towers and tower imagery, bird companionship, and that both characters saved a young boy in a different time but found them not to be substantially similar. This is so because the Dane character resided in a rook chess piece house and built time machines that looked like that house while the Deschain character’s Dark Tower was neither a house nor a time machine but a nexus tying worlds and dimensions together and an end goal for Deschain’s quest. The bird companion elements were different as Dane embraced the rook bird as a belt buckle, wore rook wings, and flew into battle alongside a rook bird while Deschain merely encountered a talking crow and allied with a fighting hawk that he eventually sacrificed in furtherance of his own goals. The young male companion element was also different as Dane’s young boy companion was his great-great-grandfather and was saved by Dane at the battle of the Alamo while Deschain encountered and bonded with a young boy that he ultimately ended up sacrificing to further his own goals.
When evaluating the Dane and Deschain characters on the whole, the Eleventh Circuit found even further dissimilarity, noting that Dane was more of a simple traditional comic book hero while Deschain was more properly categorized as a complex anti-hero. Given the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling, DuBay petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of certiorari to the Eleventh Circuit, however, by denying it, the Supreme Court foreclosed any further avenue of appeal for DuBay and the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling will remain undisturbed on these issues.
Is it really an update?
My understanding of this article is that it related to the 2021 ruling from SCOTUS and it uses this to push the fact that the legal team of the website is able to help other clients with IP infringment suits.
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CLUB STEPHEN KING (french website about STEPHEN KING, since 1992) : on : Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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Not an update. Simply an advertisement.
It is a decent summary of the situation though.
"One day you're going to figure out that everything they taught you was a lie."
Doesn't this say no further appeals are possible so the case is done?