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Having Fun With Copyright: Public Domain Superheros!

cute purebred dogs in bright superhero capes
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We’ve talked about copyright a bunch of times here, and we definitely encourage everyone to check in on some of the basics. Libraries are often the part of their organizations responsible for enforcing copyright law, or at least reminding everyone that federal law is not something to mess with.

And a lot of these stories are pretty discouraging, or filled with lots of technical detail that make you doze off. (That could just be me.)

So, this is a really fun story – and one that you could use as a program in your own library!

If you listen to the NPR show Planet Money, you already know this story. But if you didn’t, and even if you just want to a repeat of the fun, you can find the whole thing here.

  • We Buy A Superhero 1: Origins
    Marvel has 7,000 characters, man of them forgotten. We want to buy one from their vault and launch our own little Planet Money franchise.
  • 2: Loophole
    Marvel was not interested in selling us Doorman. But there is another way to jump start our superhero empire.
  • 3: Resurrection
    We have found the perfect superhero. Now we just have to make him our own.

But, what? Marvel owns the copyright to all the characters their creators have created, right? If you make stuff for your employer, the employer owns the copyright.

Although copyright laws are, objectively, bananas in the United States – eventually copyright does expire eventually. When that happens, the material – in this case the superheros – enter the public domain.

And at this point, this is where the rest of us get to play with all these neat things. Books, music, movies – it is all available for all of us to use!

From the Stanford Library: “The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it.”

You can keep up with everything that enters the public domain at the Duke University Law School Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Here is their list of some of the material that entered the public domain on January 1, 2021.

Planet Money led the way, with developing a superhero that was in the public domain – bringing it up to date and letting everyone enjoy this new hero. And you can do it too!

There are lists of available superheros – already having their identities and abilities created and ready to go! You can take one of these public domain characters, and use them in your library or your school. Print out copies of their image! Put them in charge of connecting people to the best books! Let patrons pick superheros and write stories about their feats of daring today!

The sky is the limit! This could be a fun activity for you to do with students, a writing prompt for patrons in a writing group, or something to help encourage people to use your library. (You can probably think of a couple of people who are not necessarily fans of the library – but who would be excited to play with 3D printed versions of their very own superhero!)

Here is a collection of superheros that are already in public domain from the website Fandom. Trending right now:

And this is a website with public domain characters, from the website Comicvine. Here are a few characters you might want to use for yourself:

What are you still doing here? Go! Have some fun with some superheros today!!!