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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Ask Black Mask, or Conde Nast. Where there is a continuing revenue stream involved, there'll be lawyers. If somebody has a few million for the defending lawyers, I suppose we could talk....
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I know the proprietor of Blackmask. There hadn't been a continuing revenue stream on the properties for years. CN went after him because they hoped to generate some by licensing the Shadow and Doc Savage characters for movie deals for multi-million dollar fees, and wanted to establish clear title to the rights. It took them seven years to get around to doing it. (Someone at CN's parent company decided to try to mine their IP for more revenue when their numbers weren't what they hoped for.)
CN "won", technically speaking, and Blackmask went down (to be reborn as Munseys, sans the offending content), but shot themselves in the foot longer term in the process. The discovery phase was...interesting, and various things CN would probably not have made public voluntarily (like the way they bought the rights from Dent's widow for a pittance) are now on the record.
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What I find interesting is the chilling effect mentioned by Nate. I gather there has been no case law on the subject in Canada so far. (Is Canada a "loser pays" civil legal system?)
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Good question. A lot of pressure like this is successful because those pressured either can't afford to or prefer not to spend the time and money defending themselves, regardless of whether they are technically in the right.
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Dennis