[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Jack are you telling me that if Marvel comics is aware of a site like that one and does nothing about it they lose their copyright??

In such a case, Marvel effectively loses its right to a claim in later cases involving the originally breached copyrighted material where a lawyer can make a sufficiently solid case that the incidents are sufficiently similar; yes, the copyright doesn't go away in its entirety, but essentially that's the case.

Also, Marvel would have to be officially (proveably) aware of the breach for it to count.

Many companies contract out enforcement to other companies. In this way, they can claim in court that they were making an effort to enforce their rights, and any apparent inaction was really the result of the contracted company not fullfilling its obligations - it's a form of insurance.

However, in many cases you can get license to do non-commercial stuff with the simple expediant of writing a letter to the right person. This covers everyone's rear ends: you are licensed, so you aren't in violation of anything; you are licensed at the will of the company, so the company doesn't have legal issues with you doing stuff; you are producing the stuff, so people can't convincingly say that the company is choking creativity. They will likely toss several stipulations into the license (such as not putting the characters in positions that the company wouldn't put them in, and not selling the stuff, and that the company can terminate the license at any moment, on their whim) but they are unlikely to be too terribly restrictive in practice. Further, it doesn't need to be too terribly formal - if Atrocities recieved the word from Paramount in letter form saying that Paramount isn't concerned and wishing him luck on his web site, he could drop that off in a safe deposit box somewhere and merrily make Star-Trek ships to his heart's content.

Mind you, I am not a lawyer, and could be off on many of the details.