Kickstarter provides a platform for crowdfunding which can be very useful in reviving entertainment properties. However, it is also vulnerable to the watchful eyes of publishers who are suspicious of the possibility that it has committed copyright infringement.
Reports are saying that HarperCollins Publishers have just summoned Kickstarter to abort the proposal in creating a sequel to Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. They have explained that the sequel, Back to the Wild, used characters, locations, and other copyrightable materials of the original work. Any form of unauthorized ‘sequel’ of the work is a clear violation of the estate’s legal right to come up with copied works.
The project was spearheaded by illustrators from the United Kingdom named Rich Berner and Geoffrey O. Todd. Their target is to raise £25,000 to create the book, Back to the Wild. They wanted to share the story about Max and all those creatures that he had met along the way. The book would also serve as a loving memory to Sendak who passed away last year.
HarperCollins had expressed that even project proposals of a work that is yet to be produced are still capable of infringed copyrights. Obviously, the project creators had no idea that this can happen.
The project proposal showed some sample illustrations about the story of Max. In the sequel, Max is already in his 30s. His daughter, Sophie, has to think of a way to solve the creatures’ problem of overcrowding. Readers are already familiar with Sophie as her character was already introduced in Wild Things.
The decision to remove the Back to the Wild as a Kickstarter project was reported beforehand by GalleyCat. The company had noted the fact that Sendak wrote before about never writing a sequel to the original copy of Where the Wild Things Are. He had strongly expressed his views when asked in a public interview.
