Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, frank quitely, image, jupiter's children, jupiter's legacy, Mark Millar

The Ridiculous Legal Challenges Against Jupiter's Legacy

Published Wed, 15 May 2013 11:00:03 -0500

Last updated Wed, 15 May 2013 11:23:44 -0500

Last year, the then-upcoming comic Jupiter's Children by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely changed its name to Jupiter's Legacy. At the time, Millar said "We just preferred it when we were playing around with finished logos and decided to tweak the title while we still could". But it had probably more to do with a trademark dispute from a music band, Jupiter's Child. Despite groups such as Love And Rockets co-existing with the comic of the same name, because they operate in different markets, the US trademark folks found that;

The applicant's stories relating to people, the arts, and entertainment, as well as comic books and magazines featuring comics and novels, are all presumably on the topic of musical bands, such as the registrant's band, rendering confusion likely as the same consumer is likely to be interested in all of these goods and services.

Which was a hell of a thing to presume. Anyway, it looks as if Millar and Quitely weren't minded to fight it and the comic changed its name to Jupiter's Legacy and that should have been that. Except Jupiter's Child were still not happy and kept issuing challenges to Jupiter's Legacy as well as other titles that Millar and Quitely applied for the trademark Jupiter's Gift and Jupiter's Requiem. Eventually Millar responded saying;

'Hello! Lovely to hear from you. Our comic is called Jupiter's Legacy. Your band, I believe, is called Jupiter's Children. I thus have no idea what you're talking about and neither do you in terms of copyright violation. My lawyer is probably ignoring you now. Best, Mark Millar'

'I've no idea why I'm wasting my time with this, but I think you misunderstand. Our project is called Jupiter's Legacy. Your band is called Jupiter's Child. Star Wars, Star Trek and Starman all have the word STAR in the title with no conflict just as my project and your band have Jupiter in the title. What on Earth are you talking about? Are you aware that there's a movie called Jupiter's Rising out next year? Are you taking them to court too?'

And Millar is right. Completely. He could probably have gotten away with Jupiter's Children if he'd pushed for it. But he didn't. Yet that's not enough for Jupiter's Child and frontsman Marcus Singletary (who managed not to mention that fact when writing this article about the situation), and who has had some form when it comes to trademark oddness.

Because they have now decided to name Jupiter's Child's next album Jupiter's Legacy. And then tweet a litany of hate against Mark Millar. Until I replied asking what was up, and they suddenly deleted all their tweets.

Topsy has preserved some of the less foul ones;

jupiterslegacy Jupiter's Child

Jupiter's Legacy was created by Jupiter's Child, not Mark Millar and Frank Quitely

jupiterslegacy Jupiter's Child

If Millar/Quitely are saying they "created" Jupiter's Legacy, they are lying

They also hashtagged a number of tweets with #kickass.

It is, of course, nonsense. Millar and Quitely went above and beyond to rename Jupiter's Children to Jupiter's Legacy, which they had no legal necessity to do. Marcus, move on. And please, don't include a Jupiter's Legacy comic inside that album. Because if you did, Millar and Quitely are firmly within their rights to sue you.

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