“I yam what I yam,” declared Popeye. And just what that is is likely to become less clear as the copyright expires on the character who generates about £1.5 billion in annual sales.
From January 1, the iconic sailor falls into the public domain in Britain under an EU law that restricts the rights of authors to 70 years after their death. Elzie Segar, the Illinois artist who created Popeye, his love interest Olive Oyl and nemesis Bluto, died in 1938.
The Popeye industry stretches from books, toys and action figures to computer games, a fast-food chain and the inevitable canned spinach.
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on January 3, 2009 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Media Law, News, Rights, intellectual property, open source.
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