Writing for the National Law Journal, Marcia Coyle provides a primer on some of the issues surrounding comics-industry litigation:
An increasing amount of litigation occurs because comic books generally are serial publications, said [intellectual-property attorney Geoffrey] Gerber. Character creation in any given issue is divided up typically among an author who writes the script, a penciler who draws the image, an inker who goes over the image and prepares it for publication, a colorist who fills in and a letterer. “In trying to identify who the creator is, you have competing interests,” he said.
Character ownership is protected by copyright, trademark and unfair competition laws. Trademark litigation in this area is not unusual for the courts, said Michael Lovitz, an intellectual property partner in the Los Angeles office of Wilmington, Del.-based Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz. Not as “ripe” yet for courts are cases involving the termination of transfers of ownership rights.
The Copyright Act of 1976, which extended the life of copyrights, also created two types of termination rights. One section conveys a termination right covering all transfers of copyright made by authors in 1978 or later, and another for copyrights transferred before 1978. They provide a five-year window in which a copyright can be reclaimed. No termination rights are offered to works originally created as works for hire.
Seeing termination litigation on the horizon, Lovitz said some companies are trying to be “proactive” by reaching out to creators to involve them in a percentage of new products. “You can turn a potential negative into a great good will.”
Not surprisingly, part of the article focuses on the Siegel family lawsuits against Warner Bros. and DC Comics concerning the rights to Superman and Superboy.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I have to write a 30 page paper about an original legal topic…I’d considered writing about just this topic, but ended up going with something else. I guess I’m glad I did!