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.

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.