WIPO hosts Cartoon Exhibition
Geneva, April 17, 2002
Press Releases PR/2002/307
Comics and cartoons are one of humanity's oldest forms of creative expression. Their beginnings can be traced to prehistoric times, when men and women painted hunting scenes on cave walls to record their exploits. Already, the creative urge was taking hold, and a new art form was developing: simple oral storytelling was not enough - these early human beings turned to drawn images to better express themselves.
The cartoon as we know it today began to take shape in the 19th century, with artists using pen and paper, and the printing press, to express not only their artistic inspiration but often political ideas as well. Political cartoons became common throughout the world, and with improving printing technologies, and increasing distribution of newspapers and magazines, the art form spread. Many of these cartoons used captions underneath the drawings to help explain the story.
As in all art forms, creativity and the urge to innovate led to new developments. With the introduction of speech balloons, in 1896 in Richard Fenton Outcalt's The Yellow Kid, the modern form of the comic book was born. These small round white spaces filled with text, representing a character's speech or thoughts, made the simple cartoon a more complicated narrative form: a blending of art and literature, able to tell more complicated stories with more complex characters and plots.
The comic book, as well as the comic strip in newspapers, quickly took hold in the first half of the 20th century. Krazy Kat, Popeye, Superman and Dick Tracy were popular in North America, while Japanese Mangas, combining traditional comic strip drawing with images taken from early films, spawned imitators throughout Asia. Tintin, created by the Belgian Herge, is still popular throughout the world, as is the French Asterix and his sidekick Obelix.
As comics were gaining in popularity, artists turned to another innovation to further develop their medium: the cinema. Winsor McCay is widely credited as the father of animation, producing between 1911 and 1921 the first short animated films. These were painstakingly crafted, sometimes taking more than a year to produce five minutes of animation. Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse (who first appeared on screen in 1928's Steamboat Willie), took the process a step further with the production in 1937 of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated feature film.
Today comic strips, comic books, cartoons and animated films are an integral part of every culture. They have evolved from simple drawings created by a single artist to feature-length, animated features produced by huge teams of animators. Increasingly, these animators use powerful computers and software to practice their craft. Comics and cartoons are available today on all continents, in newspapers, magazines, and books, on television, in cinemas, and on the Internet.
Copyright Issues
Comic strips and cartoons, as fruits of original creativity and imagination of authors, are protected by copyright. This gives creators the ability to gain recognition and financial reward from their creativity. Copyright also provides incentives for further creation and enhances the enjoyment of culture and entertainment.
Under the law of copyright, owners of rights, at least initially, are the authors who created the work and their successors in title. Oftentimes in the course of making of comic strips, cartoons and cartoon films, many individuals and entities such as illustrators, scriptwriters, publishers and producers, are involved in a given production. Depending on the nature of the contribution made by each individual and entity, as well as the legal system of that particular country, they may or may not qualify as authors or co-authors. The laws of many countries also provide that, whoever is the initial owner of rights in a work, all economic rights may be transferred (moral rights, being personal to the author, can not be transferred).
Many creative works protected by copyright, including comic strips and cartoon films, require mass distribution, communication and financial investment for their dissemination; hence creators at times sell or license the rights to their works to individuals or companies (such as publishers, film studios, syndicators, etc.) that are better placed to market the works. In many cases the consolidation of rights with a single agent is fostered by national laws through provisions on transfer, entitlement to exercise exclusive rights or initial ownership of rights by the employer. Contracts also play an important role in determining the ownership or the licensee of rights in those cases.
In general authors and other rightsholders have the rights to authorize or prohibit the following acts: reproduction, adaptation, distribution, public performance, broadcasting, communication to the public and translation. Apart from these "economic rights", authors also enjoy "moral rights". Moral rights involve the right to claim authorship of the work and the right to oppose changes to it that could harm the creator's reputation.
Many comic strips and cartoons are just the beginning of a long chain of subsequent products and services such as movies, games, multimedia products and merchandized items which bear the characters that initially appeared in the original production. Again, contracts play a crucial role in determining the terms of exploitation and use of the work.
Merchandising of items such as toys, interactive games, books and clothing including the characters of the production are now much more than mere ancillary aspects of the original productions. These merchandising items can also be protected by intellectual property rights, mainly copyright and trademarks, along with other areas of law. Hence Mickey Mouse, Tintin and many other characters have received another life after their initial debuts.
Comic strips and cartoons are increasingly seen on the Internet or in the form of digital multimedia products. For people to enjoy those creations without the fear of infringing copyright, and for the creators to safely explore these media as a new means of delivering their products, the adjustment of the legal system is critical. The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) (entry into force on March 6, 2002) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) (entry into force on May 20, 2002) provide the appropriate legal ground for such types of exploitation of works.
Under major international treaties, copyright works are protected for the lifetime of the author plus 50 years after his or her death. There is a tendency to extend this term to 70 years after the death of the author, in particular among industrialized countries.