Yeah, ownership of original artwork comes with ZERO explicit rights . Owning the "rights" or in this case, the copyright, is totally separate from owning an original. If Topps commissioned the work and the artist invoiced Topps for the work in question, chances are they own the rights to it.
If these are rejected pieces that Topps never paid for, then the question of copyright is less clear. Because who paid for or now owns the rights? The most obvious person would be the original artist, unless they sold off the piece and all rights to it.
So technically and legally, owning an original doesn't give you reproduction or publication rights. BUT, in real world practice? Ebay is awash with copyright infringement. Somewhat reputable t-shirt dealers online are similarly awash with trademark and IP violations. So... in actual practice, this debate is likely all a moot point. Because regardless of the legality of it, they're doing it, and no one is probably going to stop them.
The humor would be if someone else started blatantly ripping THEM off and producing bootlegs of THEIR bootlegs (and I realize this has already been brought up previously). They would have little room to complain and no legal ground to stop them. Even if ethically-speaking, it would be pretty low.
Somewhere out there, someone who is looking at doing things the right way by pursuing legal licenses for usage of other people's IP, they're the folks who get kinda knocked by all of this behavior. It dis-incentivizes that area of entrepreneurship.
well noted, thanks for that. I'm still not sure if one owns the original art to any piece that gives him/her the
right to publish it or profit from it. If it was submitted to Topps and Topps paid for it, they own the rights I would think?
They can later sell the artwork if they choose.
(And my apologies for starting any debate, I'm not trying to stir any embers, just hypothetically thinking of
the Lost Wacky projects specifically)