Copyright Vs Trademark.

Posted: Tuesday, May 8, 2001
By: Darren Schroeder

Emilio Diaz, the creative force behind FV Comics has a useful experience to share about protecting your rights as a creator:

"I originally registered the name Mantaman under copyright with the Library of Congress. Then a few months ago before Mega Con, I decided to find out about Trademarks. When I tried to register the trademark for the name I found out another company had already registered the name Mantaman! Well, suffice to say I was rather upset at this. So I then had no choice but to change the name to something else."

While there doesn't appear to be any malicious intent on the part of the other company involved, it should serve as a reminder to anyone who wants to be sure they have control of their characters that they have to cover all the options. Luckily things turned out okay for Emilio:

"I decided to change [the name] to THE MANTA and the name stuck ever since. The fans actually like the new name better and are behind me one hundred percent."

Check out Emilio's work at http://www.fvcomics.net



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