The latest court order in the Siegel case could be the beginning of the end. For years the prevailing assumption has been that this case would end in a settlement, not a trial. By imposing a sixty-day mediation period, the judge is pressing both sides to bring this dispute to its natural close.
The thing about settlement negotiations, though, is that they’re highly unpredictable. If you haven’t ever seen one in action, you might want to read this description of the events leading to the Siegel and Shuster payment arrangement in 1975, excerpted from Gerard Jones’ must-read history, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book.
You might notice that in Jones’ account the law was not the only concern shaping the outcome. This is not at all unusual. In a settlement negotiation, the law is merely one of several things that can influence what each party decides they can accept. The following are a few of the factors that are likely to play a role in determining whether negotiations succeed or break down.
The mediator: The company to conduct the settlement negotiations is JAMS, one of the nation’s leaders in the field. The parties’ agreed-upon mediator is a former California judge, the Hon. Daniel Weinstein. While mediation follows a standard set of guidelines, mediators have their own individual personality. Just as the members of a jury can affect a verdict, the choice of mediator can make a big difference in what happens throughout the course of a negotiation.
The lawyers: The Siegels have a lawyer known for his relentless efforts to reclaim intellectual property rights. Lawyers for DC, Warner Bros. and Time Warner (from here on, “DC”), have a responsibility to defend corporate interests — and, despite this feel-good profile, the company’s lawyers have a reputation for being tough. That said, each side knows that a long, drawn-out trial often ends without a winner. Expense, stress and exposure to public attack can prove draining even to the side that receives the more favorable verdict.
The level of trust: A mediation typically proceeds by reaching an agreement to terms that are fleshed out in a detailed final settlement agreement. The Siegel copyright opinion (22) indicates that the Siegels believe that opposing counsel engaged in a strategic bait and switch in previous negotiations, reneging on initially agreed-upon terms in the apparent hope that the Siegels would cave in to last-minute changes. If the Siegels do not believe they can trust the other side to adhere to its word, they may be wary of signing a settlement agreement.
The Siegel copyright opinion: The Siegels’ success in regaining the copyright to Action Comics #1 may be the symbolic moment that leads each side to see that the time for ending this case once and for all has come. Or it could lead the Siegels to feel they have no need to settle. That ruling may equally push DC to fight to minimize its effects or even to get it reversed. How each side views its potential for prevailing in the remaining claims will be a key factor in what happens next.
The Shuster termination filing: So long as the Shuster estate remains a wild card, DC will be concerned about the implications of the Siegel settlement for the Shuster case. On a broader level, DC will have a similar concern regarding the settlement’s implications for other copyrighted properties with a viable termination claim.
The Siegel and Shuster legacy: We must never underestimate the power of history in shaping a party’s willingness to settle. The Siegels may decide they want a court to declare once and for all that Superman — at least in the U.S. — belongs to his creators. At the very least, they might insist that any settlement include an acknowledgment of Siegel’s (and perhaps Shuster’s) rights in Superman, even if in the same agreement those rights are assigned back to DC. Much like DC initially resisted Siegel & Shuster’s creator credit back in 1975, its lawyers might not want to concede the legitimacy of creators’ claims to its copyrighted properties — or it may decide that this anniversary year would be an opportune time not just to resolve this matter, but to emphasize its uniqueness.
Next up: a closer look at the key issues, including trademarks, Superboy, film and the Shuster estate.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Very interesting stuff.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
After reading this, I feel like that guy going: “Aye-yi-yi!” in the lower left corner of the ‘Action Comics’ # 1 cover!
April 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Advice to DC: SETTLE. You can pay now, or pay later. Later will be *much* more expensive.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
So just to be clear, DC still owns Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Metallo, Titano, Lana Lang, and The Daily Planet?
Is it possible for the Seigals to hire someone to make Superman comics (without the above characters of course)?
The way I understand it would be possible. Certainly stories have been told outside of those characters and the DCU in general, but the long term viability of Superman seems to be best in the hands of DC and interacting with Lex Luthor, Batman, etc. (At least in my opinion.)
Here’s hoping that everyone (DC/Time Warner, the Siegals & the Shuster estate) can come to an agreement they are actually happy with. I wonder if the Siegals would settle for a sale price that would grant all rights to DC again? I guess we’ll find out in a couple months.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Okay, a lot of this legal speak is confusing to me so I will try to be as straight forward as possible.
Does this ruling mean that the Siegels, once DC’s copyright expires, can shop Superman around to other publishers like Dark Horse and Marvel?
And do you think Time Warner, if things don’t go their way, will pay the fee to the Siegels to continue the publication and licensing of Superman? (They’d be stupid not to)
April 7th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Here is what I don’t get,how can this supposedly be the end of Superman. If they don’t settle and wait it out till 2013 then the other half of the copyrights go to shuster. That still doesn’t help in that the trademarks are retained by DC.
It would take even more years of cease and decist order’s in order to make the trademarks dissapear. So unless the Siegel’s lawyer is convincing beyond all belief…there is no way they can remove superman,trademarks and all completely from DC.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
My prediction: The family takes Superman to Marvel where he will have long blonde hair, a yellow and blue costume, live in the Avengers’ tower and is somewhat insane.
Either that or he will be sold to Rob Liefeld who change Clark’s name to Supreme.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
My prediction: The family takes Superman to Marvel where he will have long blonde hair, a yellow and blue costume, live in the Avengers’ tower and is somewhat insane.
Either that or he will be sold to Rob Liefeld who change Clark’s name to Supreme.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
In laymen terms what is the worst thing that can happen to DC and Superman and their future together,and what in your opinion do you believe will happen with this case.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
@4-9: Important questions and hypotheticals. These are exactly the sort of issues I’ll be covering in detail starting with my next post.
For a quick overview, check out my initial FAQ:
http://uncivilsociety.org/2008/03/a-siegel-superman-copyright-de.html
@2: If you feel that way, imagine if you were a lawyer for Time Warner!
April 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Or another option - DC delays this whole thing in court for years, meanwhile pushing out Superman books & merchandise. Then in few short years, the thing DC/Warner has been dreading this whole time - Superman actually becoming a public domain character - actually finally happens .. and DC is free to publish the character as they please. At that point, it’s in my opinion that MARVEL - the only other major comic corporation in North America - would most likely AVOID publishing their own Superman book - as a matter of “honour amongst thieves” - since they don’t want their characters cannibalized by DC either.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I’m not sure to understand this copyright stuff about Superman and Superboy (thought these two are the same person). I hope Superman will kept going on DC for a long time, and I don’t think Marvel comics could do a good job for making Superman stories. (Remember Stan Lee’s Superman in the what-if story). I know DC have Captain Marvel from Fawette comics years ago. I hope we could see Superman in comics for a long time. Mostly, I hope it would be DC comics. Imagine the world without Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Wait and see.♠
April 7th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
again MR. Siegel and Shuster must be Piss up in heaven see Siegel family destroying their dream their life work.
How sad this Woman are showing how horrible it is to be in our country
April 8th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Actually, Michael, what the widow is doing would seem to be very much living up to the dream of Mr. Siegel, who wanted financial support from Superman for himself and his family. Nothing has been destroyed.
Perhaps you should learn a bit more about Jerry Siegel and his life before presuming to speak for his spirit.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:22 am
I may not be thrilled about the whole court case thing myself but I doubt anyone in “heaven” is mad at their still living wife over going to court over this. This all could go any which way still. Here is a new thought of mine. Could DC just let the other side win and then come 2013 when it becomes public domain pick up publishing Superman again like nothing happend?
April 8th, 2008 at 6:34 am
“again MR. Siegel and Shuster must be Piss up in heaven see Siegel family destroying their dream their life work.
How sad this Woman are showing how horrible it is to be in our country ”
Again, you speak before even bothering to engage what little brain you possess. Do some research, or let the grown-ups talk alone.
April 8th, 2008 at 6:41 am
What I don’t understand is that they have not been awarded clear title to SSuperman but to Action #1. does this meann that from Action #2 right up through today ,and including the Superman titles the copyright is clearly DC’s? Or , since those stories are derived from Action #1 they share the copyright?
April 8th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Rod, I don’t believe Supes will be entering the public domain in 2013. I’d read 2033 somewhere else (it might’ve even been here), but I don’t think even that’s the case. Jeff seemed to think the earliest it might happen is sometime around 2063. It’s in one of his earlier postings/comments. I’m still fuzzy on all the details, Ineed to go back and refresh myself on the details, but it doesn’t sound like Supes will be going public domain in the lifetimes of most people here.
Even then, who can really say? Disney Co. fought real hard to keep Mickey & Co. out of the PD awhile back. DC/WB might be able to do the same thing, but I think a lot depends on how things play out in all this court action.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Actually, you may have seen one of my messages pointing out the 2066 date, but as Jeff has pointed out elsewhere, I was in error. While modern works created on a non-work-for-hire basis keep within copyright for 70 years after the death of the creator, works from that era have the copyright period maxed out at 95 years regardless of whether they were work-for-hire or not. Jeff’s got another of his fine posts pointing out the dates which you should check out, but the 2013 date is not when the Action 1 material goes public domain - it’s when the other half of the Action 1 copyright might be reclaimed by Joe’s estate, which would leave Time Warner with none of those rights and thus having to license the material from either of the creators if they want to continue to use it.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Does this pertain to anything other than the rights to reprint Action #1? I don’t see how any of it would result in the modern character being taken away from DC. I could see a situation where the Siegels were allowed to branch off their own Superman comic, but would be forced to use the exact designs from the one issue or redesign him away from the current DC version.
It seems like it’s really just about the family getting half the profit every time any part of the issue ever sees print.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I’m not sure where I read what did, Nat, but I believe I was going off of the “70 years after the creator’s death” concept. I knew it wasn’t 2013 though.
Of course this still begs the question of whether or not Supes (and Batman, or any other iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse, Bilbo Baggins, or the Star Trek characters) could end up going public domain someday. I was keeping up with Jeff’s excellent posts for awhile, but I’ve lost track over the past few days. It’s possible he addresses this very question and I just missed it.
I do remember that Disney fought hard to keep Mickey, but I don’t know/remember what the end result was in terms of being able to keep “the mouse in the house” indefinitely. I would just think that if there’s a danger of Supes going PD, then Mickey and Batman (two characters of roughly the same era) could end up PD at around the same time.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
@Shaun–now is actually a good jumping on point, since we’ve covered the legal basis for termination and are going back over the copyright & trademark implications with more detail.
The life + 70 years standard can be confusing. The key point to remember is that this applies to post-1977 copyrighted material, provided it wasn’t a work of corporate authorship (e.g., work-for-hire). Pre-1978 material has the single 95 year term.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
It would be neat in sort of a perverse way to see what another company could do with Superman, but in reality, I don’t want to see anything happen to the existing status quo except for the heirs to get a share of what they rightfully deserve. Yes, over the years there have been rulings and settlements and money paid out, but we all know it doesn’t begin to add up to what the Cleveland boys rightfully, not necessarily legally, should have had.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I like the part how it says the Siegel’s think that DC won’t stick with a settlement. Siegel himself was the one after getting payments several times that he went back and sued again.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Wow, I am not feeling any love in the room. Anyway, Notice Superboy was killed; Superboy Prime is now “Superman Prime”, even the LOS animated series has a Superboy (or 2) named “Superman”. Smallvile is in question now. Why? No one calls him “Superboy” or Superman for that matter. The estates of the creators only want $. My opinion does not matter if and when they should receive money or the rights. If they do win the rights and do publish Superman comics he can’t possibly look like he does now, right? He would more than likely just have his original “S” in a triangle. This is all disturbing the only losers are the fans. What about Miracleman/Marvelman? Again the fans loose.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
“Wow, I am not feeling any love in the room. Anyway, Notice Superboy was killed; Superboy Prime is now “Superman Prime”, even the LOS animated series has a Superboy (or 2) named “Superman”. Smallvile is in question now. Why? No one calls him “Superboy” or Superman for that matter. The estates of the creators only want $. My opinion does not matter if and when they should receive money or the rights. If they do win the rights and do publish Superman comics he can’t possibly look like he does now, right? He would more than likely just have his original “S” in a triangle. This is all disturbing the only losers are the fans. What about Miracleman/Marvelman? Again the fans loose. ”
No, not really, try again, slick. And it is ‘lose’ not ‘loose’.
April 10th, 2008 at 12:57 am
slick this
April 10th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Hey “darrell-d” find something better to do than spell and grammar checking. Is your own life that miserable? I’m sure you are the wisest most admirable comic fan-boy of all time as well as an English major. Try spending sometime out of your mother’s basement and getting laid………”slick”. Does every forum have a guy just like you that knows it all?
April 10th, 2008 at 1:12 am
“No, not really” what?
April 10th, 2008 at 9:32 am
““No, not really” what? ”
‘No, not really’ the fans are the losers. It means that the Siegels (and later, the Shuster estate) have won. DC is not going to stop publishing Superman. People are acting like it is the end of the world.
Oh, @slickjohnson
Its ‘darrell_d’ not ‘darrell-d’.