Kirby Estate wants the King's copyrights back...

[Professor Zoom]

The Kirby Estate has just sent out notice of copyright termination...

The Estate has hired the same lawyer in the Siegel vs DC case...

I'm curious how this will go. It's a long way off, but the Estate is laying the ground work...

 

[TemporalFlux]

The whole thing reminds me of an old saying. Want to make the company out to be the devil? Well, the devil gets his due.

Truth is, these properties probably wouldn't be billion dollar babies without the corporate support. Superman is a great example of this. Without DC's legal maneuvering, Captain Marvel would probably be the property everyone knows while Superman would be worth much, much less as the property relegated to relative obscurity.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

The ongoing legal dispute over the Superman rights is about to enter an interesting stage. The judge who had been presiding over the case is stepping down from the bench (he says he needs to make more money in the private sector as he has seven children). He's reportedly been pursuing a strategy of using his decisions to try to move the two sides to settle the case, with some of his awards to the Siegel estate in particular being made with the intention to make a settlement more palatable to DC.

A new judge will now be taking over, so the case is at a crucial point - the new judge might continue that judicial strategy or take a different view altogether.

 

[Nick Ryder]

Y'know I can understand how the Kirby's think that they are somehow "owed" this, but really... Jack did the work, what did any of his "heirs" do? That's what bugs me with both this suit and the Siegals'. If this was say... John Romita (another one of Stan Lee's still living collaborators on the budding Marvel Universe and the artist that took over for Ditko on Spider-Man) and his son John Jr. was suing the company because his dad's work was being taken advantage of, of course JR Jr. is an artist of repute as well. Or even the Kubert Clan (Joe and Adam and Andy) and y'know what the Romita's and the Kuberts would understand the matter and just feel honored that their work has lasted as long as it has.

Why hasn't Don Heck's family gone after Marvel/Disney too? He was the artist behind the First Iron Man comics! Kirby did Iron Man's redesign in Avengers, but Don Heck drew Iron Man first. So shouldn't Marvel Studios be paying him and his heirs a royalty over the Mark 1 armor shown in the movie? Or why not have Mark Bagely and Todd MacFarlane sue Sony because they used Venom! After all they used concepts that both of those Artists came up with. MacFarlane created the visual style of the character and Bagely refined it and created its spawn Venom. Why not have Mark Texiera sue them too for Wolverine:Origins for ripping off some of the characters he designed for the Weapon X storylines? Like Silver Fox and the the rest. Is Rob Liefeld getting anything from Deadpool? How about Frank Miller for the resurrection of Elektra story that the crappy Elektra movie raped and used?

These guys did work for Marvel, they got paid. They'll be happy to get some compensation if they do some idea work for a movie.

Kirby's spinnin' in his grave right now.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Kirby had some bitter disputes with Marvel and it's generally felt they treated him very poorly. He'd probably be happy to see his heirs get everything they could out of Marvel.

MacFarlane, Liefeld, Texiera, Bagley, etc, would have no grounds for legal action because the work they did for Marvel was after work for hire had been explicitly defined in law. That's not the case for Kirby.

As an aside, in the wake of the announcement that Paul Levitz will be stepping down as DC's head honcho, many creators have remarked that Levitz insituted a policy that was far more equitable towards creators than was previously the case and than has ever been the case at Marvel. Levitz made sure that creators signed the necessary documents that would give them the right to be compensated for the use, in any medium, of any character they created. Len Wein said that he resisted going to the trouble of signing the paperwork when he created Lucius Fox since the character was just "a guy in a suit", but Levitz insisted, and as a result Wein has been paid out quite nicely for the high profile use of the character in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Levitz also reportedly came up with a settlement that the Siegel family was quite happy with at one stage, but the higher-ups at Time-Warner nixed it.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Len Wein said that he resisted going to the trouble of signing the paperwork when he created Lucius Fox since the character was just "a guy in a suit", but Levitz insisted, and as a result Wein has been paid out quite nicely for the high profile use of the character in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Wein has been quoted as saying that he's seen more money from Lucius Fox than he's seen from Wolverine.

 

[Thrall]

Fuck yes! Take it back Jack. From beyond the grave..woooooo.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I'm all for people getting compensated fairly for the work they do, but I think this has less to do with royalties owed Kirby by Marvel and more to do with getting big bucks from Disney, IMO.

Show me the money!

While I don't think this will stop Disney's acquisition of Marvel in the end, I do think it could delay it and potentially be as messy as the Superman rights case unless an out-of-court settlement is reached...

 

[Bad Bishop]

Len Wein said that he resisted going to the trouble of signing the paperwork when he created Lucius Fox since the character was just "a guy in a suit", but Levitz insisted, and as a result Wein has been paid out quite nicely for the high profile use of the character in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Wein has been quoted as saying that he's seen more money from Lucius Fox than he's seen from Wolverine.

That's amazing. The first time I saw the Lucius Fox character in a BATMAN comic, Lucius was an unremarkable corporate exec who didn't seem to know that his boss was Batman. Lucius was also just the "business" guy, not a technological innovator as seen in the films. I hope that Len Wein, who lost his home in a fire not long ago, has earned at least six figures for the use of the character in the movies.

 

[CaptainCanada]

The Siegels were blatantly in the right.

In Kirby's case...well, I'd be skeptical. The Fantastic Four, for example, the basis was Stan Lee's original two-page outline, so far as I know. Decisions made before contract law was sorted out is murky, but that seems like work-for-hire to me. That was the understanding under which the comics industry worked at that point, unless you had something like the Siegel/Schuster deal, which explicitly proved otherwise. Unless they have some documentation suggesting an alternate business arrangement was in existence, I think it would be a hard sell.

 

[23skidoo]

All I can say to the Kirby estate is: too late, folks. You should have struck while the iron wasn't owned by Disney. You're now dealing with a company that has successfully taken daycares to court over unauthorized Mickey Mouse wallpaper. They're experts at fighting this sort of thing.

Alex

 

[Nick Ryder]

And this is my thought... other than the Kirby family... no one really benefits from this. I mean what, if the judge does agree to money damages and such... then what? Does Marvel have to run everything they do with the characters through his "estate?" would they really take the characters to another publisher?

Give 'em a few million and a like 2cent royalty and send em on their way.

 

[LutherSloan]

The timing of this whole thing, just two weeks or so after the Disney buyout, is very interesting...

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Nat Gertler lists some bad assumptions about the Kirby situation.

 

[MNM]

Nat Gertler lists some bad assumptions about the Kirby situation.

Now while he is right in one of the assumptions he tackles, in saying that there is a window to do this, so therefore they couldnt have done it years ago, the window didnt open the day Disney bought Marvel, so the fact that they have waited until now to do this makes it look shockingly like they think they will get a huge payoff from them just to go away.