The battle over Red Sonja — or is that Red Sonya? — finally heads to court this week.
The Wilmington, Del., News Journal reports that opening arguments are scheduled for today in a federal courtroom in Red Sonja LLC’s $5 million lawsuit against Paradox Entertainment.
The lawsuit, filed in April 2006, alleges unfair competition and trademark infringement by Paradox, which around that time acquired the rights to Conan the Barbarian and the entire Robert E. Howard library — including Red Sonya. That’s Sonya, with a “y.”
A pistol-packing Russian warrior from the 16th century, that character appeared in just one short story in the 1930s. However, as the News Journal reports, “Most media outlets missed the spelling distinction and reported that Paradox had acquired the rights to Red Sonja — with a ‘j’ — the one who prefers to wear a chain-mail bikini when she heads out for a flagon of ale.”
And that’s where Red Sonja, LLC, comes in. That company, as you may have guessed from the name, owns the rights to the better-known Red Sonja — with a “j” — the character created in 1973 by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for use in the Conan comics then published by Marvel. Although loosely based on Howard’s character, the two are different, and the rights to Red Sonja were sold by Howard’s estate in 1982.
In its lawsuit, Red Sonja, LLC, claims the lack of spelling distinction was intentional on the part of Paradox. The plaintiff further alleges Paradox posted one of the incorrect news stories on its website, “thereby citing that publication of proof of ownership of Red Sonja.” (The News Journal reports that, in a recent hearing, attorneys for Red Sonja, LLC, said Paradox had tried but failed to acquire the rights to Red Sonja before the announcement.)
The complaint also alleges that Paradox has made other efforts to create confusion between the characters, and attempted to interfere with contracts and potential contracts regarding Red Sonja.
Paradox denies the allegations and, in response, argues that Red Sonja, LLC, had allowed its trademark to lapse, and claims that Red Sonja, LLC, has infringed upon Paradox trademarks by making references to Paradox-owned characters, such as Conan.
The News Journal points out that Paradox filed for a trademark for “Age of Hyboria,” the fictional era in which Red Sonja and Conan exist, “setting up the possibility that Red Sonja LLC could win the rights to the character, but she would never again be allowed to exist in the world that has been her home since she was created.”
July 16th, 2007 at 9:18 am
And just out of curiosity, does anyone think that either Barry or Ray has even a teate of any of this?
Me neither.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:37 am
It’s a pretty clear cut case. While they share a similar name they are two wholly and distinct characters. Since Red Sonja LLC apparently holds the trademark and legal ownership of the character and is currently publishing the character internationally(They renewed their trademarhk the moment Dynamite put out a comic with the Red Sonja title on it.) They have the upper hand.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Wow.Sonja vs Sonya?I didn’t even know there were 2 of them.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Why would they want to take the character out of the environment she has been placed in and operating out of for all these years?They may only succeed in bringing harm to the character and her fanbase, I can’t say,but its possible.What if they try duplicating the environment she used to exist in,’Age of Hyboria’, would Paradox(who filed for copyright of this fictional era as the article states)now decide to return the favour and sue Red Sonja LLC for copyright infringement?What a mess that would be!
July 16th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Well, if Paradox wins the TM rights to “Age of Hyborea” then Red Sonja from Dynamite is going to have to move to a different world. My question is, it that’s the case, what happens to Conan from Dark Horse, since he shares the same world.
I think Paradox would end up making more enemies then friends if they pursue the TM.
I certainly wouldn’t collect any comics by them if I lost my Conan and Red Sonja comics.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Man,
I love when I see comic type properties going to court for the only reason being that I get to read page after page of wanna be Perry Mason’s argue about things they don’t know anything about.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I’ve always wondered how the rights got split in the first place. From the looks of the 1982 date, does it have something to do with the Red Sonja movie?
I guess this is how things get confusing with a “shared universe” character.
How did the Howard estate get the rights to Red Sonja in the first place given the fact that she was created by Marvel?
How is it that Marvel retains the rights to characters like Death’s Head, Acturus Rann, Marionette, Bugg, Red Ronin, and Dire Wraiths, created for other media tie-in comics like Death’s Head, Micronauts, Godzilla and ROM?
Who owns Kulan Gath?
July 16th, 2007 at 11:26 am
“My question is, it that’s the case, what happens to Conan from Dark Horse, since he shares the same world.”
Nothing, since he is licensed by Dark Horse from Paradox. Chances are, even if they achieve the trademark on “Age of Hyborea”, if anything Red Sonja LLC would just license the use of it. I would be curious if they could be awarded the trademark however considering it’s current use in Red Sonja, and the lack of filing before hand. This wouldn’t be like with the Champions, where Marvel had it first but they stopped using it. In this case, since both are using it legally, I’m not certain they can get a trademark. Of course, I’m also not a lawyer, and the fact that Paradox is headquarters somewhere in Europe instead of the US may effect this as well.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Geee, what a mess.
Wouldn’t it be great if they somehow worked it all out in a way that made Sonja and Conan be published by the same company again? I would love a new Conan/Sonja crossover some day.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Even with a TM to the “Age of Hyboria” that only keeps, Red Sonja, LLC from using Hyboria as a title. It wouldn’t stop them from using the place as a setting for the comic. Marvel owns the rights to Captain Marvel and that just forces DC to call the title some variant of Shazam! even though he is referred to as Captain Marvel within the book. This is the same concept just applied to a fictional place.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Obviously Paradox is loosing because they fired their lawyers and you don’t fire your lawyers in the middle of a lawsuit if you are winning. Also, I remember their CEO left the company and they never mentioned as to why. But I think it was sometime in ’06 after the lawsuit was filed. I guess my question to Paradox is; what happened to your old CEO; Peter what his name? So I say that the people who fired their lawyers and CEO are the ones in trouble. How can they “split” a character? This was not created at Marvel, it was adapted at Marvel from the Robert E. Howard story. Thats way it always said based on a character by Robert E. Howard and even the Conan 23 in the first comic book, the story arch was called Shadow of a Vulture. And Roy Thomas Thomas said that it was a tight adaptation to the original story. Basically the estate cannot sell the same character twice. Paradox cannot have “better” rights than the estate that they were buying from.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Wow, I wonder if all this legal BS is the cause of Dynamite taking forever in releasing their TPBs of the old Marvel RS stories?
July 16th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
if they actually made a series out of this it has the potential to beat the Spider-Man xover a million times over.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Maybe Red Sonja LLC could trademark “Hyborian Age”. Seems appropriate with all the subtle name differences surrounding the case.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I agree with post #11, who said ‘This was not created at Marvel, it was adapted at Marvel from the Robert E. Howard story. Thats way it always said based on a character by Robert E. Howard and even the Conan 23 in the first comic book, the story arch was called Shadow of a Vulture. And Roy Thomas Thomas said that it was a tight adaptation to the original story.”
Thats like another publisher create their version of Batman or Baytmon and tell everyone its adapted based on Bob Kane’s comics.
There’s no pretending Red Sonja isn’t adapted from Howard’s creation.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Re – #7
Quite simply, Marvel has had different deals for different licenses. With Conan (as with Star Wars), the licensor got the rights to the ensuing material, which is why Dark Horse is able to reprint all that material without striking a deal with Marvel. ROM and Micronauts were done under different deals, in which Marvel retained rights to the new material they introduced.
July 17th, 2007 at 7:57 am
“In its lawsuit, Red Sonja, LLC, claims the lack of spelling distinction was intentional on the part of Paradox.”
http://www.conan.com/f_redsonya.shtml
I dunno, I’m not a lawyer but it doesn’t look like Paradox has been intentionally trying to confuse people. In fact, I’d almost say it was the other way around…
July 17th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
> > How is it that Marvel retains the rights to characters like Death’s Head, Acturus Rann, Marionette, Bugg, Red Ronin, and Dire Wraiths, created for other media tie-in comics like Death’s Head, Micronauts, Godzilla and ROM?
> Quite simply, Marvel has had different deals for different licenses. With Conan (as with Star Wars), the licensor got the rights to the ensuing material, which is why Dark Horse is able to reprint all that material without striking a deal with Marvel. ROM and Micronauts were done under different deals, in which Marvel retained rights to the new material they introduced.
And Death’s Head & various other Transformers characters were (briefly) published elsewhere first (Circuit Breaker turned up in Secret Wars II, for instance), deliberately so Marvel could hold onto them.
>> Who owns Kulan Gath?
Marvel DID (ergo him turning up in X-Men, Exiles and Avengers at various points). They’ve either licensed or sold him to Dynamite for their Red SonJa series.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Re: #17 look at the date of that press release – it was 2 days after the lawsuit was filed.
January 17th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
The blog was how do i say it… relevant, finally something that helped me. Thanks:)