Warner Bros Wins Superman Copyright Case Against Co-Creator’s Heirs

[Kamandi]

I have mixed feelings on this.

As a creator's rights guy I feel Siegal and Shuster got screwed. If WB had written a nice fat check and settled this it would have been the best outcome.

As a Superman fan I was concerned the character was going to be ripped to shreds with some parties owning different pieces of the character and his 70 years of history. I couldn't imagine Superman never flying again, or facing Luthor, or doing any of the other things that were invented after issue 1.

Warner Bros Wins Superman Copyright Case Against Co-Creator’s Heirs

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Wednesday October 17, 2012 @ 4:35pm PDT
Tags: DC Comics, Joe Shuster, Superman, Warner Bros

The heirs to Superman co-creator Joe Shuster will not be getting back some of the rights to the hero next year as they wanted. A judge said today that an agreement the estate signed 20 years ago with DC Comics rules out any effort by his heirs to terminate the copyright granted to the Warner Bros-owned company. The order granting partial summary judgment (read it here) comes in response to a motion from DC Comics. “The Court finds that the 1992 Agreement, which represented the Shuster heirs’ opportunity to renegotiate the prior grants of Joe Shuster’s copyrights, superseded and replaced all prior grants of the Superman copyrights. The 1992 Agreement thus represents the parties’ operative agreement and, as a post-1978 grant, it is not subject to termination,” wrote District judge Otis Wright III today. DC’s motion is based on their 2010 claim to stop the Shuster heirs taking back rights to some early Superman works on October 26, 2013. In 2008, the estate of the other Superman co-creator, Jerry Siegel recaptured half of the original Superman rights through the courts. ”The order for the most part is the tentative order issued over six weeks ago before oral argument. We respectfully disagree with its factual and legal conclusions, and it is surprising given that the Judge appeared to emphatically agree with our position at the actual summary judgment hearing,” says defendants’ lawyer Marc Toberoff. Warner Bros had no comment on the order today.

As all this has been going on, WB have been preparing their Zack Synder-directed Superman reboot Man Of Steel, which is scheduled to fly on the big screen next summer.

source: https://www.deadline.com/2012/10/warner-bros-superman-court-win-as-co-creator-heirs-lose-rights-termination/

 

[EVILFACE]

Kinda shocking but good for DC I guess.

Shuster & Siegel should've made a better deal early on. They are the ones that deserve the rights, not their heirs.

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

**** yeah!

now DC can change back to the real superman

 

[Kamandi]

**** yeah!

now DC can change back to the real superman

Superman, yes. Everybody else... not so fast.

The rumors regarding "New 52" is it's a copyright retention plan. In the case of Neil Gaiman vs. Todd McFarlane a court was asked to reward Gaiman ~400k for a Spawn figure based on Gaiman's design. McFarlane's arguement was Spawn was his and Gaiman created a design variation. The court eventually rewarded Gaiman saying such a one-off was a new creation and it had been used without permission.

This apparently cause some lightbulbs to flash. DC and Marvel have created one-offs they can fall back on should the Kirby family, Kanes, Ditkos, or any other early creators or their heirs decide to lawyer up.

The attorney in this case has presented a Termination of Copyright notice to Marvel on behalf of the Kirby family for all of Jack's creations. Let that sink in. ALL of jack's creations.

IMHO Disney should write a check.

 

[thenammagazine]

Kirby's co-creator of a lot of characters having come up with the visual design. But how many did he actually create on his own?

 

[Kamandi]

Kirby's co-creator of a lot of characters having come up with the visual design. But how many did he actually create on his own?

Good question. And Marvel contends Kirby was doing "Work For Hire" which is a whole different legal issue than the Siegals and Shusters with Supes. In Work For Hire a copany is paying you to create stuff and the copyright defaults to the guys paying the bills. Kirby's kids have a tougher fight for that reason.

Superman was created ~3 years before it saw print. Issue 1 was a completed work that National Comics published, afterwards hiring Segal and Shuster to create issue 2 onward as Work For Hire.

 

[thenammagazine]

Good question. And Marvel contends Kirby was doing "Work For Hire" which is a whole different legal issue than the Siegals and Shusters with Supes. In Work For Hire a copany is paying you to create stuff and the copyright defaults to the guys paying the bills. Kirby's kids have a tougher fight for that reason.

Superman was created ~3 years before it saw print. Issue 1 was a completed work that National Comics published, afterwards hiring Segal and Shuster to create issue 2 onward as Work For Hire.

Yup. It's a shame Simon and Shuster didn't have the legal advice Cane had with Batman. They really got shafted while DC/WB turned their creation into a cash cow.

Along the same lines, I'll always be disappointed that Kirby and his family never got the financial imbursment Stan Lee's getting, from Marvel.

 

[Kamandi]

IMO All of these guys wanted to do right by their families and few of them were able to pass much on to their kids.

I still think DC and Marvel should man up and share some wealth. Disney paid $5B for Marvel. They've been doing well with The Avengers. I don't think it would kill them to give a few million to Kirby's estate.

BTW I also just read that a court already gave a summary judgement against the Kirby family, so that fight is over. I had missed that.

 

[Shropt]

I still think DC and Marvel should man up and share some wealth. Disney paid $5B for Marvel. They've been doing well with The Avengers. I don't think it would kill them to give a few million to Kirby's estate.

The problem is that if you do it for one of them then you are opening yourself to do it for all of them. Heck, if Disney did that then they may even open themselves up to their own artists from some of their classic films.