On the surface, the latest court ruling in the Siegel Superman lawsuit is relatively straightforward: the court examines whether Warner Bros. paid fair market value for the Superman movie & Smallville licenses, and the ruling finds in favor of the defendants. However, there’s much more to this opinion than who won.
One clear theme that emerges in this opinion is the judge’s dissatisfaction with how the plaintiffs have been arguing their case. For example, the judge repeatedly asserts that the plaintiffs did not provide pertinent comparative data and failed to address what was arguably the central issue in this phase–namely, the value not of the Superman property as a whole, but of the rights in Action Comics #1 shared by Warner Bros. and the Siegels. The judge also makes a striking argument that DC unreasonably failed to include a standard clause for reversion of rights should Warner Bros. fail to make another Superman movie, only to conclude that he lacked a basis for ruling against Warner Bros. on this issue as well.
All told, the judge makes a point of stating in regard to the Superman movie rights that the reason he found in favor of the defendants was “insufficient evidence”–in other words, it’s not so much a determination that the licenses actually reflected fair market value as the lack of needed evidence for finding otherwise.
Whether the judge is correct on this point I’ll leave to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals–what I find most significant is the extent to which he is arguably signaling that the Siegels may not want to count on the present court to provide a significant amount over what they might get in a settlement. The judge’s evident frustration sends a message that is all too common in situations such as this–namely, that while the plaintiffs may have won a moral victory, that might not necessarily translate into significant cash, at least not without clear documentation and convincing arguments. In this regard, it’s worth noting that the judge calls attention to how different the original Superman was in contrast to his current incarnation–it will be most interesting to see how he assesses the value of the Siegels’ copyright interest in relation to current material.
In addition, there are a number of other reasons why this opinion is well worth reading:
As noted earlier, the next phase of the case involves apportionment of the value of the relevant Superman material between the Siegels and Warner Bros. That is ultimately the real prize, and I’ll post the details on the schedule as soon as they’re available.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:51 am
well i for one wouldnt mind seeing an allnew yet retro take on the man of steel when superman first appeared he was a much more interesting character than he is now…well to me anyways!
July 9th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Kevin T. Brown said:
“I’m still awaiting the legal battles for the rights to the Spectre and Slam Bradley by the Siegel heirs. Because, of course, this not about the money, but rather creator’s rights…….”
Snark aside, those characters don’t fall into the same category of Superman because Spectre, Robotman, Slam Bradley, Spy, and all the other characters Siegel or Siegel-Shuster created for DC fall under the work-made-for-hire laws. Siegel and Shuster never owned the copyrights to those characters to begin with just as you don’t own the copyrights to the Word and Excel documents that you create in your job. Those things done on the job automatically belong to the company you work for.
However, Superman was created by Siegel and Shuster in 1933 when they were kids in Cleveland. They did not work for DC at the time. Superman was their PRE-EXISTING creation that they took to various newspaper syndicates to try to get published. Eventually, through MC Gaines, it ended up on the desk of DC editor Vin Sullivan who was looking for material for Action Comics #1.
That is the key difference. Siegel and Shuster had a copyright that they sold/transferred to DC. The original copyright laws stated that a copyright would only last for 28 years and could then be renewed for a second period of 28 years. From 1938, this takes us to 1994. If the copyright laws were not changed in the 1970s, then Superman would have fallen into the public domain in 1994, so DC would have lost the copyright entirely 15 years ago.
However, because of the 1970s changes (pushed for by Disney among others as described above), a provision called “termination of copyright” was added to the extension whereby the parties that transferred the copyright to someone could revoke that transfer and reclaim their copyright. In this case, the Siegels and Shusters (or their heris) could each revoke their half of the Superman copyright by filing with the court. The Siegels did so for their half in 1999.
The fact that some of you feel that the Siegels and Shusters shouldn’t be allowed to do this is irrelevant. The law says that they can, so they are. They are doing nothing wrong. It’s not a bad thing to get the money that the law allows you to get. Believe me, DC, Disney, and every other music and media company make the law work for them every single day.
As far as what will happen if DC loses the entire copyright in 2013 as the Siegel’s lawyer says, that would mean that DC would have to license the character from the Siegels in order to publish him in comics or other media like TV or movies.
Since DC still has the trademarks to the character, they may be able continue to license him for toys, clothes, etc. However, I’m not clear enough on the interaction between trademarks and copyrights in these cases to understand the full implications. For example, if DC licenses a character that they don’t have copyright to, do the Siegels-Shusters have the legal right to block such licenses if the Siegels-Shusters feel that the license would damage their copyright? Like if DC wanted to be vindictive and license the Superman image to a porn company. Of course, they would never do that in reality, but I’m curious to know what the legal implications are in cases like this where one company owns the copyright and another owns the trademarks.
Also, do the Siegels-Shusters get any dough from any licensing fees that DC gets? Right now, since DC and the Siegels each own half the copyright, doesn’t DC have to pay the Siegels half of what DC gets in licensing or do the Siegels only get half of what DC makes in publishing? If DC does have to give the Siegels half of the licensing, what would happen when DC doesn’t own ANY of the copyright?
Now, as far as the Siegels-Shusters publishing Superman with another company, they should be able to, but it would be like the case of Captain Marvel, where DC has to market the series under the “Shazam” trademark. The Siegels could call their comic “Man from Krypton,” but inside, he could still be called “Superman.”
I just wish the articles on Newsarama and other places really gave a comprehensive overview of all the issues and an overview of the most probable results and ramifications in regard to both copyright and trademark. When this case is only updated here once a year or so, it’s hard to remember everything that has been discussed. Just another example of how Newsarama’s been dropping the ball in their reporting. All we’re getting is content lifted from Variety, but not even a series of links to prior stories on this topic that have been posted at Newsarama.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
@Kevin–I’ll accept complete responsibility for not posting the links, for not recapping the story in full each time I post here and for posting primarily when there’s breaking news.
Unfortunately for dedicated readers such as you, I’m not a real journalist. Technically I don’t think Imaginova would even consider me part of their staff. I’m just a professor voluntarily providing what I hope to be useful explanations and perspective, and I only have a limited amount of time to spend here relative to my other deadlines.
The one thing to which I must object is the accusation that I lifted material from Variety. To the best of my knowledge I broke the story of the judge’s decision & was the first to post the opinion online. I also broke the story of the special master. None of the above post came from Variety–the only source I had when I wrote it was the opinion itself, which I read and commented on late last night instead of going to sleep.
Everything you see comes from my own assessment of the case; whenever I’m referring to another source, I’m careful to link to give credit where credit is due. Read my posts on the latest Siegel rulings carefully and you’ll see a trademark signifier of my approach–not merely explaining the nuts and bolts, but highlighting the legal subtext that most journalists would not see. That’s why I focused on highlighting how the judge is pushing for a settlement rather than a prosaic summary of what the judge literally said.
In fact, if you look at what I said after I finally had a chance to read the Variety piece, I did not just repeat what it said. I explained how people should assess the statements that Variety merely reported.
July 9th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Considering DC’s current handling of the Superman titles (featuring Mon-El, the Guardian and having Kal-El as a Kryptonian rather than as Superman) I can’t help wondering if DC is testing how to use their characters without using the Superman copyright. I know we have seen denials that this is the case, in which case it might be subconscious on the part of the creators but it was clearly DC’s stated gameplan to put their big guns out of the picture to give a chance to develop more characters.
While Superman may be a different character now than what Siegel and Shuster created, the secret identity, the name and costume are the key features which still define the character. In other words, I feel thaty any use of Superman is the use of the original character while the current World of Krypton isn’t the Superman copyright from Siegel ans Shuster.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
If this happens I’ll stop reading comics end of story.