Peep

Really. Tell that to the comic book companies who own the rights to all the characters that their employees created.

Oh, and my company says that it owns the rights to any software that I write on company-owned equipment, even if I do it on my own time.

It all depends upon the contract.

Mike Adams

Yes, I see what you're saying. I had simply assumed that Groening was supplying the producers with shorts to use in the show, it doesn't seem that Groening was an employee of Tracey's production company and created the characters at her request. Who knows what the actual contract says, but to me it seems a little different than being an employee of a company who is paying you to create something and therefore retains all rights to what you create. These characters were apparently developed specifically for shorts requested for the show, but for Ullman to claim rights to the characters would be like BEST BUY wanting a piece of every Macintosh sold simply because they have an agreement with Apple to sell Macs in their stores.

Anyway, I can relate. The company I used to work for owned the rights to any character I created, and even my name, and I had to sign an agreement transfering ownership of that stuff to the new company, as with any other asset. I also had to sign away likeness rights to Universal when I was chosen as an extra for Evan Almighty, so I guess I can paraphrase Carrie Fisher's line... every time I look in the mirror, I owe Universal a quarter.

Cameron

that would be the smart thing to do on her part....