I have to confess that 1) I read comic books and 2) I primarily read the Sonic the Hedgehog comic and related books. I read other books, too, but I brought this up for a reason. I’ve been reading Sonic since I was a kid; I’ve always been a huge fan of the old games and the world they and the comic created. That was about 15 years ago. Things could be changing soon though.
Yesterday, Ken Penders, a professional writer who is responsible for much of the world contained in Sonic the Hedgehog, announced he is lobbing a copyright infringement claim towards the Sonic property. Mr. Penders claims that his copyright and his old contract, with Archie and SEGA, were violated when Bioware produced Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. He believes, as do a good number of people siding with him, that Bioware used his ideas from the comic as the basis for the game’s story.
He wants to reclaim the rights to his characters and story concepts that he created for the comic. He seems to believe that when Bioware was allowed to produce a story with striking similarities to his work, SEGA violated the contract that he signed when he was hired to write and draw for Archie. He is looking to have say over when and where his ideas can be used, but SEGA, according to the wall of text in each issue, owns anything and everything written into Sonic.
It’s hard to say who’s right, but emotions are high, and have been for a while now. To anyone familiar with the internet fandom of Sonic (which I’m ashamed to say I’m familiar with), it has been obvious that there two main camps: those who liked what Mr. Penders did on the book or those who think the new head writer, Ian “Potto” Flynn, is the best thing to happen to the book. Either way, it’s no secret that Mr. Penders hasn’t been happy with what Ian has been doing.
It’s an interesting question though: Who owns these characters? Even if they’re used in a serialized work, Mr. Penders fathered all these ideas. Still, he did so with the understanding of what they’re being used for. He also has plans to release new works based on those characters he created, does he have the right to do that?
