interesting,

I can’t imagine DC without Superman.

They could make Hal jordan the greatest superhero ever then.

so DC could lose the rights to SUPERMAN? that would be awful! does that mean no more superman in DC? wtf is that. that’s bull crap. do the siegals want to be hated?

I agree. It’s a dollars thing. I don’t think the Siegle family would be interested in shopping the property around when there’s already a huge established franchise at DC and Warner Bros. Not knowing much about this, it does sound like the family is owed much more than Jerry Seigle ever got for his contribution of Superman and Superboy.

I’m sure they’ll work something out that sees more payment to the family.

Awesome, the Bizarraram lets me interact with regular site people.

This trial is very stupid to me. What do the Siegals hope to do if they do get the rights? Are they going to start thier own company on the strength of one character? are they going to sell it off to the highest bidder (Time-Warner would win no doubt)? Are they going to rent the character out to whoever wants to use him?

Just settle for the money that you are inevitably going to get already!

You know what’s really a shame? That every single person who cared enough to write a comment about this story, couldn’t be bothered to note the correct spelling of “Siegel”…

Even though Superboy’s a younger version of the Man of Steel created by the editors, when Siegel and Shuster were enlisted in WW II, it’s still the same character they created.

I hope both parties agree on a settlement.

The Siegels aren’t going to be starting their own Superman publishing company. The character will remain with DC/Warner Bros. no matter what. It’s simply going to be a matter of which party gets how much money in profits.

While I do agree that DC has made tremendous strides in upholding creators’ rights and royalty payments, I don’t agree they should necessarily maintain complete control of the character of Superman. Superman wasn’t created for DC, it was brought to DC, and both creators received $130 for their trouble (if I remember correctly). DC took advantage of the popularity, Siegel and Shuster received little for their creation, and Bob Kane subsequently became rich by creating Batman for DC some months later. Why shouldn’t the creator be allowed a royalty on his creation, whether a “work for hire” or not? I would think a creator would love the chance to become rich by licencing his character for film, television or any other substantial revenue generating medium.

I think an amicable split between the parties relating to the creation of Superman is the only fair and reasonable thing to do.

Let’s not call them sleazy. They had no idea the Superman character would become as successful it did. Perhaps at the time they paid for it, they were only willing to pay however much they did. Because that was the value the property had at the time.

I hate to admit this, but as a law graduate and CPA UK equivalent this is really interesting.

God, I’m a dork.

I hope Warner Brothers & DC Comics wins. That may seem cruel but I think gread on the part of the Siegel’s is what this is all about. They don’t deserve a dime. The creators were fairly compensated at the time, what the character was worth. Sorry!

Jeff, while you’re right to some extent regarding more intangible forms of vindication, I find it interesting that this action was started following Siegel’s death.

As far as I understand, neither Siegel or Shuster had any issues with DC/WB following the final deal struck following the annual $35K deal in 1975 (I assume that this was $35K per annum adjusted in line with inflation, suggesting about $135,000 pa now – anyone know?)

The fact that this lawsuit is timed as it is suggests to me at least that Siegel’s heirs want to continue receiving money for a creation that Jerry Siegel had a hand in. I don’t think there’s much intangible vindication going on here.

It’s not that I don’t think they’re entitled to royalties or monies of some sort, but I think that anyone who views this as them carrying the torch for their late husband/father is being a little naive.

The thing you guys are missing, and the heart of this case, and the reason it will be a game changer for ALL of copyrights for ALL properties, is the fact that the ONLY reason DC still ‘has’ the copyrights to Superman is because the United States Copyright Code was CHANGED, multiple times.

It was amended and extended AFTER the creators of Superman signed the original contract which would have give DC the rights for about 20 years.

They are not suing for ‘extra’ money, they are not doing some ‘money grab’, and they are not trying to ‘steal’ the rights away from DC.

The Federal law of this country allows them and has granted them the right to return the copyrights to the rightful owners during a specific window in time, because any and all contract that were signed back during the time Superman was…. would have already become public domain.

DC should not even have a Superman copyright, because the contract they originally signed only allowed a one time extension.

The family’s are simply filing the paper work to get the copyrights back, since the contracts that were originally signed have a built in, Federally mandated time limit.

This is not a ‘fight’, this is basically the same thing as you filing paperwork for money the IRS forgot to give you last year.

The only issue here, is this is the first time those parts of the ‘revised’ copyright code have been tested in court, and from the judgments handed out during these cases, you can expect US copyright law to be changed forever.

Say what you want about current Superman Story-lines being dreadful. Siegel and Shuster’s family are after the money that the movies and marketing create. It greed plan and simple.

They sold their souls to the company to get money for an idea they created and I’m guessing the amount they got paid for for said idea was agreed upon or we wouldn’t have Superman. They both we pissy with DC back when they were both alive and couldn’t come up with anything else that had legs like Superman.

It’s like someone creates Mickey Mouse Jr. The stories are all set in Disneyland. That person gets paid for doing the work. Then years later the family sue’s Disney because they use the character in a movie. A movie that Disney own the character out right. That’s what’s wrong with our legal system, stop these worthwhile suits and tell the family to get jobs if they want money.

Nat, I believe that DC could actually fully lose the Superman copyright (but not the trademarks) if both the Siegels and Joe Shuster’s nephew were successful in their termination of copyright during the 2013 copyright window for Superman.

Roy, Superboy was NOT created by the editors – that’s the crux of the whole suit. Siegel and Shuster created Superboy and the concept was rejected by DC. Then, they went ahead and started publishing stories about Superboy in their absence. At that time, DCs ownership of Superman was watertight and pretty much indisputable, but since Siegel and Shuster never cut any kind of deal with DC for Superboy, the ownserhip was in question.

You have the sides reversed. The Siegels are trying to prove that Superboy is not a derivative work rather than that he is one.

I’m just thinking what everyone wants to hear. Superman at Marvel.

DC/Time Warner needs to settle this, asap– they don’t want to risk losing their flagship icon..

Here’s hoping that both parties straighten things out.

Shame on any comics “fan” that screams about greedy creators on this matter.

Josh:

Time Warner is many things, but it is not a charity. They regularly threaten and/or sue people for copyright and trademark infringement. They would not hesitate to enforce intellectual property rights. [I note that decades before buying the rights to Captain Marvel, DC basically put Fawcett out of business through litigation about similarities to Superman]

Warners isn’t surprised or ignorant of copyright law, and has an active lobbyist cohort to advocate changes to their benefit. If the Seigel’s win, it won’t be because they’re taking money from a naive victim.

And lest anyone worry, there will be Superman and Superboy stories–incomplete rights to Superman aren’t marketable unless you also own Jimmy Olson, Perry White, Lana Lang, Brainiac, Bizarro, Kryptonite, the Fortress of Solitude, the Daily Planet, the bottle city of Kandor, etc.

It will simply cost Warners a lot more money to get the rights they need. And since they should have given Siegel and Shuster their fair share of the money 55 years ago, things will simply be put back to closer to what they should have been all along.

It’s an overstatement to say that the lawsuits drove Fawcett out of business. This was the 1950s, lots of publishers were getting out of the comics business, and while DC may have interfered with the publication of their most popular characters, they did have a deeper line of comics that could have continued in a healthy market.
Fawcett stayed very much in the publishing business, eventually selling out to CBS for $50 million. (And in fact they were an important publisher of comics in the 1960s and 1970s, albeit comic strip collections.)

After reading all your comments it seems that the entire group has no idea what they’re talking about.

Let’s just hope this will be all over soon.

Rob – most characters done now are on a for hire basis, so this issue shouldn’t come up again. Learning from the past and all that.

Ok, let me see if I get this straight from everything that has been posted here …

If Superman leaves DC it will be be a Superman without the S-symbol? without de curving title? without perry white, the planet, jimmy olsen and pretty much every other supporting character? … so basically you will have a dude named Clark Kent who can lead tall buildings in a single lap and all of that … but the rest stays at DC? … who would want to buy that? … to me it would feel like buying a car and all you get is the steering wheel … so there would be no such thing as “Superman at Marvel” it would be a character who looks like him but is nowhere close to what DC has done with the character for over 60 years because it will not have anything of the mythos … so the Siegels and the Shusters are filing a law suit for something that they can use as toilet paper after the lawsuit is done? … and I’m supposed to belive that no lawyer told them that in case that DC decides to not fight the lawsuit? and people is still saying that this is not about money or greed? they want money that’s all there is to it … because if they get the copyrights they’re not getting much after 60 years of stories about Superman they would have to re-create the mythos completely from scratch only using the name Superman … and that my fellow friends is not enough, just not enough.

My memory may be failing me here, but wasn’t there a similar suit within the past ten years or so, only involving Joe Simon & Marvel over Captain America?

A Google search turns this up: http://www.simoncomics.com/position_papers.htm

Does anyone here know what the outcome of that was?

(Oh, and according to current U.S. laws, the copyright on Superman is good until 2033 — 95 years after first publication.)

actually, you need to read a bit more about the US copyright laws.

Since the contract was signed long BEFORE that 95 year rule was put into place, the original owners of the copyrights have the right to terminate that contract, and have the copyrights revert to them.

The original US copyright law said that you could only copyright things for 14 years, with a 14 year extension. It was changed in 1909 to be 28 years with a 28 year extention. That would have been the law when superman was signed to DC.

As you can see (assuming you can do the math), that period is clearly over. The only reason it hasnt reverted back to the family’s or gone to public domain, is because of subsequent further changes to the US copyright code.

Bottom line, anyone who signed agreements under the old laws have a right to terminate any agreement made, since the new laws would be unfair to them.

My god, what if they can’t produce Smallville anymore?

No.

NOOOO!!!!:)

Alejandro,

Superman at the Bugle… what a great idea. Or better yet Superman in the DC, Superboy in the MU. That would be weird. Superboy taking over Parker’s jog at the Bugle. Then DC and Marvel could really see who does it better.

Robb,

I wouldn’t expect the lawsuits to be done if Warner Brothers looses the rights to Superman. I would expect that the Siegel’s go after compansation for for the moneys Warner Bros. recieved create a trademark around a character they didn’t own.

It would be no different then if Warner Bros. created a trademark around Spider-Man, and marvel wanted compensation for a characterthey owned, as ludicrous as that sounds.

“they did-end of story”

Obviously it’s not.

“you marvel clods better get a handle on the shabby way jack kirby was treated by stan and the compensation he was NEVER given(not to mention ditko and the entire 60’s bullpen)”

I’m curious why you seem to think the Siegel case is so black and white (“they did-end of story”), yet in the same post you chide Marvel for not (properly) compensating Kirby.

Patrick C., Shuster’s Nephew, Mark Peary, HAS filed paperwork to terminate copyright for Superman, but it won’t be effective until the next window (the result of the 75 year copyright extension) in 2013.

Dan Dogget, interestingly, the lawyer representing the Siegels in this case is the same one who represented Stan Lee in Stan Lee Vs. Marvel Enterprises where Stan sued for (and won) additional compensation on licensing for the characters he created. But the suit didn’t offer anything for Kirby or Ditko, obviously.

Eric, I got the Superboy and Superman suits confused. Mark Peary hasn’t filed a termination for Superboy, he has for Superman.

I’m fairly certain DC can win on Superboy, him being derivative of Superman, and DC currently owns Superman.

To be honest, I’m not sure what will happen with the Superman copyright. I haven’t read through all of the Superman claims/counter-claims but I don’t see how DC can block the Siegel’s reclaiming it. Superman was clearly not a work-for-hire.

I’d love to see an arrangement that results in the Siegels getting some creative control of the character. I’d very much like to see a return to the Siegel Superman– a badass “thorn in the side of the establishment” (Siegel’s phrase) fighting poverty, corruption, warmongering, spousal abuse, execution of innocent people, tenant exploitation, etc. It was only later that DC turned Superman into a god who refused to meddle in the normal affairs of mortals, fighting aliens, supervillians, and mad scientists, but not the everyday suffering that people in the real world experience. Siegel’s Superman anticipated the “relevant” comics of the late sixties (particularly GL/GA) by thirty years, but unlike GL/GA, Superman was willing to break the law and challenge authority and power even when the law was on their side. The original Superman was less of a cop and more of an activist of the sort that cops tend to beat up at large anti-globalization protests. Superman was the original comic book anarchist– decades before V for Vendetta. Everyone talks about what a boring character he is, but this is largely because Superman has been a shadow of himself ever since the editors took control of the direction of the character from Siegel. Frankly, a Superman who has the power to stand up for the oppressed but doesn’t is a jerk and a wimp.

Neither DC or the Siegel family will do any good if the Siegel family wins.
When people think of DC, is Batman and Superman the first names which came on our minds. If DC don’t holds the rights, the best thing the Siegel family would do is to ‘rent’ to some other editor, but that would be a bloody mess