Tom, you’re jealous piece of shit, plain and simple. These people have been railroaded practically all their lives out of a fair share, A FAIR SHARE, of profits by DC. And you begrudge them a move to right a wrong. Fuck you. You have nothing, and you will never have anything.

http://www.superboyhomepage.com

The Siegels have shown no intent to publish their own Superboy.”

How is this any different? Well, Avilos’ last statement makes it obvious what is different. It’s true, it’s doubtful that the Siegels intend to publish Superboy comics on their own–which means that either they’re looking for a payoff, or that they want a percentage of the profits from every appearance of a Superboy that DC publishes from now on. That latter possibility is where it deviates from the Lennon analogy.

Yoko Ono receives money from the profits of work that Lennon did and had already received initial payment for–the record company isn’t re-paying Ono the initial fee for writing and recording the music on top of royalties for the sale of said music.

If the Siegels win the rights to royalties from Superboy, then for every appearance of a Superboy from now on, DC will not only be paying the writer, artist(s), colorist, letterer, etc., their work-for-hire fees for a given issue, they will also be paying a cut of that issue’s profits to the Siegel family. This will make it less profitable for DC to use Superboy in their comics, and thus less likely that the character will be used at all.

I think THAT is what has so many comics readers biased against the Siegels’ case: despite DC’s denials, it’s perceived as limiting or outright preventing the use of a popular concept, for the purpose of what is perceived to be more of a money grab than any concern for creators’ rights.

(It should be like what some of the publishers now are already doing in regards to reprinting vintage comics material that has fallen into public domain for various reasons, like AC Comics and Pure Imagination do. Once ACTION COMICS #1 falls into public domain, I should be able to reprint it myself, should I wish to. As I said earlier, figuring out what to *call* the collection might be tricky as I don’t know if I could call it “Superman Classics” or “DC Comics Classics”, for instance since DC would still have the trademarks on “Superman” and “DC Comics”. I perhaps couldn’t even put an image of Superman on the cover. Don’t know. If simply an enlarged panel from the story itself, perhaps. When it gets to the point of getting into those kinds of details, it’s starting to get a bit beyond me at that point.)

Trademark complications are why Sherlock Holmes pastiches have titles like The Final Solution, The Italian Secretary, The Seven Per-cent Solution, Murder by Decree, etc. So much of what makes Superman what he is today accrued over time and will be unavailable for anyone to use in our lifetimes.

Second, this whole thing of copyrights reverting to their original owners only goes for cases where the original creator/s can after a certain number of years “reclaim” their copyright. It doesn’t work in cases where the creators were under “work for hire” circumstances, however, so nearly all of the Golden Age, Silver Age, etc. comic characters and their creators wouldn’t fall in to this. In the Siegels/Superboy situation, the claim is that Jerry Siegel pitched the property to DC prior to their actually publishing it (without his involvement) in 1944, and that it was not part of any “work for hire” agreement.

As to why the Siegels didn’t do this first for the Superman character (instead of waiting and doing this for Superboy), perhaps they simply missed the deadline to do so. There’s a certain number of years after the original assignment of copyright that the creators can do this and perhaps they missed it? (Or perhaps they felt that DC had more of a legal advantage with Superman thanks to the various previous legal procedures that were held between Siegel and Shuster and DC?)

Of course, all of the above is just as per my own understanding. I could be wrong about some of the details.

David Y.

1) If the copyrights for Superman, for example, revert in 2013, what does that mean for DC publishing a continuous series? Would they have to get permission from the Siegels to do so? Could the Siegels take Superman somewhere else, or just stop Superman stories alltogether? (highly unlikely, of course) And not just Superman, but all characters published by the company, really, if the families of the creators can take control of the characters that DC been publishing for 50, or in some cases obviously, more years?

2)What would this mean for the industry, if every character created, is now no longer belonging to the company, but the “estates” of the creators? For uses, they would have to pay royalties, which would then be passed on to the comic buyer?

Which makes for an interesting thought that just occurred to me. If they can get away with doing this on the cartoon–basically doing Superboy and simply changing his name to “Superman” to get around the legal issues with the Siegels–I wonder if they might ever consider doing Superboy reprints and going in and changing the text to read “Superman”? I think I’d be very ambivalent about it if they ever did try it. On the one hand, they’d be seriously messing with the material and I don’t think that I’d like it. On the other hand, if it came down to a choice of that or never seeing the older stuff reprinted, well, I think I could probably learn to live with it, then.

Don’t know if they’d ever do it. (Plus, it might not be enough of a difference should these things continue to go the Siegels’ way; the altered strips would still feature a young Superman’s years growing up in Smallville with the Kents, after all.) Still, it’s an interesting thought to consider (if ultimately reject).

(P.S.: I wonder if this whole thing with the Siegels is also why we haven’t seen a second season DVD set of the “Superboy” television series yet. Then again, it could just be that the first set didn’t sell particularly well.)

1) I don’t believe DC has much interest in doing reprints of material that has passed into “public domain”. I think they’d prefer to focus their energies on material that they exclusively own and control. So, if you are suggesting that DC might simply wait until the material passes into public domain and then start reprinting it (without having to worry about the Siegels), I kind of doubt it.

Plus, by that point, all of DC’s *own* pre-1944 (Superboy’s first appearance in MORE FUN COMICS #101) stuff will have passed into public domain already (assuming that more extensions haven’t been put into effect on when these things pass into public domain). If I understand the process correctly, ACTION COMICS #1 (1938) will pass into public domain in 2033 (28 years after it was originally published + 67 more years if it was renewed properly). I know that seems like a long time from now but from DC’s perspective, that’s probably not very far off as it represents when pretty much anybody will be able to start reprinting their earliest Superman comics. I’m getting a bit off track, I know, but I’m trying to say that by this point DC will have other, more pressing, issues on their minds. (Plus, heck, I want to see those Golden Age Superboy Archives some time *prior* to 2039–when I’ll be 67–thank you very much!)

2) Re: The impact of the Superboy legal doings on potential Superboy and the Legion reprints, yes, I’ve heard from a couple of folks who would know over the past couple years that indeed they were holding off on doing anymore Superboy *or* Superboy/Legion projects until the legal stuff got worked out. I was told that they could still reprint an occasional Superboy story here or there, like in a collection of Superman stories, but not entire collections where Superboy was a primary character. Like I said earlier, perhaps this has changed a bit as of late, as they just released a SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES reprinting those early Superboy and the Legion stories. Or, perhaps, they just figured that since they were already selling those stories in their still-in-print LEGION ARCHIVES, that doing a Showcase Presents of those same stories wouldn’t be a problem. Don’t know. Just guessin’ there. I guess I won’t know for certain until they get around to reprinting stories not already in LEGION ARCHIVES volumes one through twelve.

Clark and 41st Century Superman will BOTH be on the team together.

And, for you ‘well, they have the trademarks so tough luck’. Guess what, this case is going to be the front running case in a new millenium rehash of the entire concept of copyrights and trademarks. There are already cases in motion now to link the fact that one cannot own a trademark of something they do not own a copyright to.

Bottom line, when the contracts were signed there was a Federal government stipulated TIME LIMIT to the contract. All of you ‘if i sold my car, I cant ask for it back’ guys need to go read some copyright LAW before you give us your uninformed opinion. When the contracts were signed there was a 56 year TIME LIMIT. It was NOT LEGAL to sign any contract, nor would it have been binding in any way, for any duration above that 56 year mark.

The ONLY reason the families have a right to terminate those contracts is, by law, the Federal government listed in a time period where the original owners of the copyright have the right to TERMINATE the contract on the date it would have originally expired.

Again, this has NOTHING to do with Superboy, nothing to do with your ‘feelings’, nothing to do with what is ‘fair’, nothing to do with who is a bigger money grubber. The law was changed and rather than invalidate all previous copyright contracts, the Federal government opted to allow all contemporary contracts to be terminated on the original end dates.

The families in this case, again, are only exersizing their legal rights to simply terminate a contract on the date it would have legally ended based on the laws in place when it was signed. And again, Superman is up in 2013.

Initially there were no ‘adventures of Superman as a boy’ mentioned in the days before Superboy. He was a fully grown adult with no adventures as a teen hero. They created the whole backstory somewhat retroactively. I see this piece of the pie as the Siegel’s.

Isn’t it a bit strange that both Captain America (not really sure what the deal struck was with Simon)and the Blue Beetle and get killed the shortly after there are either legal victories or heirs start copyright retrieval the process.

I can’t believe there isn’t enough cash involved to make everyone happy.

The reason that the Fleischer Bros. cartoons can be sold willy-nilly by discount DVD firms is that the cartoons have fallen out of copyright, yes?

The reason that they do not use the S-logo on any of the packaging for those cartoons is that the S-logo is trademarked, yes?

So, if this case pans out for the Siegels, would it mean that someday a publisher like Americomics might be able to publish a comic book (let’s call it “teen hero” comics) with Superboy stories inside, so long as the trademarked image does not appear on the cover? (Let’s presume that Black alters the art to obscure the items still in copyright to DC– renaming Lana Lang, for example.)

Or is this analogy way off?

Would that be possible

And while I’m a bigger public domain advocate than anybody, DC would still have the trademark on Superman regardless of the 1976 revisions to copyright law.

The difference would be that their comics through 1952 would be subject to reprint.

But they’d still own Superman, the Superman logo, the S-shield, etc. Just not the printed stories themselves through 1952.

Time/Warner gained an awful lot out of the law changes that created those extra years of protection and created the opportunity for recapture.

Do we really know that this is a ‘bitter’ dispute between the parties? Just because this is about money, and just because it’s in court, doesn’t mean it’s a bitter dispute, that we must take sides on.

It’s entirely possible that both sides looked at this, agreed that there’s some form of compensation that needs to happen, but, based on law, didn’t know what that compensation should be based on.

Sometimes it really is easier to let this get settled by a court, to pave the road ahead.

But since it’s his family, and they had nothing to do with the character, I’m rooting for DC in this case.

I know it’s not that simple but it should be. This is pure greed on the part of the family.

If Superboy wasn’t a derivitive work, I suspect that this would already have been settled like the Joe Simon and Carmine Infantino lawsuits. In this case, there’s a legitimate diffence of opinion over what is actually owned.

Some of Joe Kubert’s creations, Viking Prince and Sgt. Rock, are approaching the copyright reversion deadline soon. Joe’s young enough that he may get to enjoy a nice little bonus. Heck, it’s not like DC is doing anything with Viking Prince and it might be easier to get that into print if it reverts to Joe.

FWIW, the expiring copyright is one of the reasons I suspect we’re getting the EC Archives now.

b) The one-sided, take-it-or-leave it contract is called a contract of adhesion. It’s not automatically void, a court has to find it’s unconscionable. An adhesion contract is more likely than most to be unconscionable, but the court will ask whether the terms were such that a reasonable person would have agreed, whether there was competition, etc. Here, Siegel could have gone to work for another company, and the price and terms probably seemed pretty reasonable for junk, which was what people thought comics were in 1939. Let’s not forget, either, that Siegel didn’t have the internet — he needed a printing press and publication network to get his art to market. The owners of these assets gambled on hundreds of creations a year, very few of which paid off. Their view, and it was pretty much universally held for a while, was that they were therefore entitled to the whole profit. Even today, most mass-market comics creators work for the company, not the other way around.

c) It’s not “ludicrous” to say you have an ethical obligation even if the law changes. I’m not sure I see an ethical obligation in this case — copyright law is completely artificial, and the whole point of changing the law was to change the rights. But to compare the ethical situation of everyone with a contract made invalid by action of law, with such an extreme case as a slavery sale contract, well, that’s what I find ludicrous. That’s like saying that every contract that happens to not quite meet some legal standard, like, say, a real estate contract that doesn’t fully identify the plat, is as bad as a contract for murder. Both are unenforceable, therefore they’re ethically the same? I don’t think so.

By the way, Abraham Lincoln himself argued that we should pay slaveowners for their property rights. That changed only after the slaveowners rebelled and the Union emancipated the slaves as a war measure. The basic principle that slavery contracts should be honored in the sense of compensation, though not by giving the owners specific performance, was actually taken very seriously at the time. Brazil, IIRC, actually did exactly that when they abolished slavery.

This wasn’t the case when Jerry created Superboy. There never were books like “Young Sherlock Holmes” or “Hercule Poirot Jr.” Superboy, while derivative of Superman, was a new concept — Taking an existing comics property and creating a “spin-off” character that’s related but new.

When Superboy was introduced, it was a radical idea in comics. All he had in common with Superman was the costume, alien origin, and name. Beyond that, pretty much all aspects of the character were new. It’s been mentioned that some elements were retconned into Superman before Superboy showed up. Well, yeah, and they were retconned in on the basis of Jerry’s pitch. Thus, those elements in Superman were actually derivative of Superboy, not the other way around.

As to accusations that the family is only “money grubbing” because of the recapture, well, yes, it’s about the money. But couldn’t it be equally said that Time Warner is money grubbing for trying to hold onto the copyright to a character that is arguably not theirs under the law? Of course both sides are wanting the revenue from future uses of the character. But — isn’t that the whole POINT of the copyright law? To allow the creator and heirs to control the use of the property and to profit from that use?

The argument that the character was sold to DC, and that should be honored despite a change in copyright law is, well, kind of silly. First of all, the ‘sale’ of the character to DC was by back-of-the-check assignment. That’s since been determined to not be a legal kind of transfer. And, even if one overlooks that, there’s still the fact that it wasn’t a contract of equals. I’m not sure of the precise legal terminology, but a one-sided, take-it-or-leave-it contract isn’t generally enforcable. That’s one of the things that the courts are using to invalidate ‘shrink-wrap’ agreements and their terms.

And, of course, the idea that the fact of a change in the legal environment that invalidates a prior contract should be ignored out of respect for ‘honoring the original sale’ is just ludicrous. Tell me, after the US Civil War, should pre-existing slave sales and bills of sale be honored because of a moral obligation to respect the contracts?

As to the availability of the previously-published Superboy material, well, again, that’s part of the whole idea of copyright laws. It’s up to the owner to decide what to do with the material, and in a dispute, what either litigant plans to use the property for is irrelevant.

- Kim