Warner Bros using stolen files in war with Superman heirs...

[Thestral]

You know, with all this... intriguing... bickering about copyright and modern depictions, what if Siegel and Schuster's estate did decide shoot their IP in the face and refuse DC/WB the licensing rights to Superman? Would DC/WB promote some other either to "take his place" as their foremost superhero? Like maybe a certain Big Red Cheese?

Part of me finds the idea of Captain Marvel becoming DC's foremost superbeing awesomely twisted considering history.

 

[BillJ]

True but I don't think the stakes are as high as fans think. They have BATMAN. Having Superman around is just a nice bonus.

These things run in cycles and DC knows it. I don't think they'll give up Superman unless they have no other choice.

 

[BillJ]

You know, with all this... intriguing... bickering about copyright and modern depictions, what if Siegel and Schuster's estate did decide shoot their IP in the face and refuse DC/WB the licensing rights to Superman? Would DC/WB promote some other either to "take his place" as their foremost superhero? Like maybe a certain Big Red Cheese?

Part of me finds the idea of Captain Marvel becoming DC's foremost superbeing awesomely twisted considering history.

I think losing Superman would be a very public, very humiliating blow to DC. I'm not sure they'd recover. At the end of the day, I think they would settle for a non-exclusive license to use the character.

 

[Yminale]

You know, with all this... intriguing... bickering about copyright and modern depictions, what if Siegel and Schuster's estate did decide shoot their IP in the face and refuse DC/WB the licensing rights to Superman? Would DC/WB promote some other either to "take his place" as their foremost superhero? Like maybe a certain Big Red Cheese?

You want a Red Lantern Corp movie. Aren't you getting ahead of yourself.

Part of me finds the idea of Captain Marvel becoming DC's foremost superbeing awesomely twisted considering history.

Caption Marvel has his own copyright problems. DC won't solve them by simply renaiming the character SHAZAM. Honestly there is nothing wrong with SHAZAM that's what everybody calls him anyway.

True but I don't think the stakes are as high as fans think. They have BATMAN. Having Superman around is just a nice bonus.

These things run in cycles and DC knows it. I don't think they'll give up Superman unless they have no other choice.

But they do have choices. Green lantern is obviously their back up plan and their are talks about a Flash and Green Arrow film.

 

[Jetfire]

And rumors of a Hawkman movie...which I think would be cool if they push him.

 

[Yminale]

I think a modern take on the original concepts might prove interesting. His strength, ability to leap and resistance to bullets could all simply be traits from being from a race that grew up on a high gravity world.

It also makes him pretty generic especially when you compare him to other superheroes with similar powers (The Hulk, The Thing, Captain America, Wolverine etc.)

As for losing Superman, I think that would actually help JLA. I mean does JLA make sense with Superman around. Ever watch "Mystery Men", that's what JLA sounds like with Superman around. Besides there is only so much awesomeness in the DC universe and Batman has the monopoly.

 

[Kegg]

I think Snaploud's question is why didn't the foundation sue SS in the 40's when it wasn't public domain. Probably something called WW2 was an issue.

Well Superman was created in the late 1930s (by which point Fritz Lang, the director of Metropolis was working in Hollywood). As for lack of ligitation, besides it being an obscenely generic name to give a town, what's to say that Ufa had even heard of this American comic?

I never said he couldn't do things in the 21st century. The problem is as you've shown you would have to radically change him and then he doesn't become the Superman the public is expecting. Like I said. it's all about CONTEXT.

Why radically change him? Just make him the Superman from the first two strips that you said Siegel & Shuster's heirs have the rights to. So he doesn't fly. He's still Clark Kent, he still wears tights, and he still punches out bad guys.

 

[Thestral]

I think losing Superman would be a very public, very humiliating blow to DC. I'm not sure they'd recover. At the end of the day, I think they would settle for a non-exclusive license to use the character.

Well I'm not talking reality here, I mean in some bizzarro world where the Siegels and Schusters cut off their noses to spite their face, refusing DC any sort of license.

 

[UssGlenn]

Personally I'd love to see a period piece Superman, who can only leap tall buildings.

I was thinking, however, that the original comic wasn't a period piece, it was set in the modern day, from their perspective. So Superman in the 1930s isn't core to the character, but Superman set in the same period as when the work is being written is.

 

[Yminale]

Well Superman was created in the late 1930s (by which point Fritz Lang, the director of Metropolis was working in Hollywood). As for lack of ligitation, besides it being an obscenely generic name to give a town, what's to say that Ufa had even heard of this American comic?

They must have heard about him by the 1940's. Superman has always been an international sensation.

Why radically change him? Just make him the Superman from the first two strips that you said Siegel & Shuster's heirs have the rights to. So he doesn't fly. He's still Clark Kent, he still wears tights, and he still punches out bad guys.

Yeah that's basically Batman with superpowers. The modern Superman flies. He doesn't punch normal people because that would kill them. He fights threats that basically threaten the entire planet. That's what people are expecting in Superman. You've basically reduced this grandiose Godlike figure and turned him in to another urban vigilante wearing a ridiculous costume.

I liked Superman:Returns because it took Superman to his logical conclusion, a secular God that people could call out to. That creaped people out. I don't see how going in the other direction would be better.

I still would like to see it though.

 

[sojourner]

^No, what creeped people out in Returns was Superman acting like a stalker.

 

[Kegg]

They must have heard about him by the 1940's. Superman has always been an international sensation.

He has?

But anyway by the 1940s relations between the United States and Germany were not conducive to copyright neogtiations (although some odd stuff in that period - the Horst Wessel song was on copyright, preventing Warners from using it for Casablanca), so I was looking at the prewar 30s.

The modern Superman flies. He doesn't punch normal people because that would kill them. He fights threats that basically threaten the entire planet. That's what people are expecting in Superman.

I may have grown up on the wrong Superman. I fully expect him to punch people. In the face. My main frame of reference are the old 1940s cartoons, though. Fighting criminals seems to be part of his vigilante brief, too.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

he still wears tights,

Yeah but from my unserstanding they would be slightly different becuase SS only have the rights to the old S-shield not the current one or you know the thing that says thats Superman.

I'm suprised no one brough this up yet.

 

[BillJ]

^No, what creeped people out in Returns was Superman acting like a stalker.

Agreed.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Superman belongs to all of us now.

Warners is still not going to let me publish a Superman comic - someone actually does own Supes and that has to be decided.

Yeah, that's not quite what I meant. Warners has delivered Superman to us for years. Cultivated him. Marketed him. Taken him to new heights, and occasionally fucked him up a little. My point was that the above should be allowed to continue, minus a "reasonable" licensing fee or pay-off.

The sentiment is a good one, but sentimental rather than practical.

And it is a sentiment that I expect will weigh heavily in a judge and/or jury's mind when coming up with a judgment/verdict. Seriously.

Siegel and Shuster's heirs are owed something, to be sure.

Agreed again, and if Warners would just cut out all this shit and give it to them everything would be fine. They're being penny wise and pound foolish here. I've never seen an article or report on this that plays well as PR for the corporation, and the amounts of money they're being asked to cough up are not much for them.

Have any numbers been given? And from a credible source?

As for PR, I doubt that few people in the general public even care, beyond the as-usual overly-invested geeks on the internet (us).

And we'll all keep buying the Superman product anyway, no matter how any of this plays out.

There's an addict's mentality that sometimes pops up in these arguments - not when folks are actually debating matters of fairness, but when they go off the rails into larcenous "creators/heirs shouldn't have rights" or "why should rich musicians get richer" kinds of statements - and broadly speaking it translates as "nothing matters except protecting my access to the drug."

And it could equally be said that a generalized sympathy for the underdog, or an artist's feeling of kinship for another artist (or his/her heirs) could just as easily color one's asumptions in the opposite direction.

Not saying that you're wrong. It's just clear that you've chosen a side, and it's entirely possible that the heirs (valid stake in ownership or no) are being similarly unreasonable or greedy in their demands.

The ownership rights (which are subjective in the minds of those that interpret the law) are one thing. How this battle over those rights plays out is quite another.

I'm somewhere in the middle on this one, as usual.

Also, we are missing quite a few facts. And we are filling them in with our own personal biases and baggage. As usual.

Point being that nowhere in this legal circus is any question of Superman being part of our "shared culture" being resolved or even discussed.

If Warner's lawyers are not using that as at least part of their argument, then they are incompetent.

 

[Neroon]

Temporary thread closure so everyone can remind themselves to avoid the consecutive posts. There is no need to single - or double for that matter - anyone out. Just make use of the Edit and/or Multi-quote functions. Problem solved.

Any more from this point onward will get infractions for spamming

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

In 2013 the Siegel and Shuster heirs share ownership of the greater part of Superman - that's the status quo, now. Warners is spending a lot of money desperately trying to find a way to steal the rights back in court. That's all that's going on here.

Emphasis on the word 'now'.

So, based on your argument:

"Prior to the most recent judgment in favor of the Siegel and Shuster heirs, Warner had ownership of the greater part of Superman - that was the status quo. The Siegal and Shuster heirs then spent a lot of money desperately trying to find a way to steal the rights back in court. That's all that's going on here."

Litigation is a game of chess. It's all check until it's checkmate.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Point being that nowhere in this legal circus is any question of Superman being part of our "shared culture" being resolved or even discussed.

If Warner's lawyers are not using that as at least part of their argument, then they are incompetent.

That's intriguing. How would you use that? Since both sides are arguing over the rights to own something, I'd have thought that they'd stick very closely to contracts and contract law. In fact if one side were to use that kind of grandiloquent, idealistic argument I'd expect it to be the folks who are trying to assert what must have been a longshot legal claim at first (given that their adversaries have enjoyed exclusive claim to the property for half a century)...and that would be the heirs.

That S&S have come so far and done so well here is pretty strong evidence in and of itself that they have a good claim. Whatever the motivations of their lawyers they can not have the many hours of time, the range of corporate and courtroom legal expertise, or the vast sums of money that Warner Bros possesses. They're pretty much like one guy with emphysema suing American Tobacco - except without the automatic public sympathy or mountain of crushing medical bills to point to. To win, and win repeatedly, they've got to have a hell of an argument...and the fact that after losing in court Warners has to resort to trying to separate them from their legal counsel in a last ditch effort to prevail reinforces that.

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Doesn't matter, they are legally recognized. Finally if I have an agenda, it's that to show that copyright laws are BROKEN, contradictory and confusing. Literally you can have the same case and can get two different decisions from two different judges.

This is true of any case or controversy, in any area of law, and always will be.

Point being that nowhere in this legal circus is any question of Superman being part of our "shared culture" being resolved or even discussed.

If Warner's lawyers are not using that as at least part of their argument, then they are incompetent.

That's intriguing. How would you use that? Since both sides are arguing over the rights to own something, I'd have thought that they'd stick very closely to contracts and contract law.

Oh, they wouldn't be so obvious about it.

In most litigation, the law is a jumping off point. (This assumes that there is even an agreement as to what the relevant law is, and/or how it should be interpreted.)

What often follows is a series of very human arguments, made by very human beings, meant to sway a very human judge and/or jury.

In the end, after the decison is made, all will swear that they followed the law.

To say that they followed their hearts would be irresponsible, wouldn't it?

In my experience, you sway the judge or the jury first, mostly with passion, and then you let them back-fill their own decision with law, and then pat themselves on the back for the sound legal decisions they have just made.

If I even suggest that I swayed them, they get insulted, and say that the course was clear from the beginning, and that there was only one way that the decision could ever come out. My passion/argument had nothing to do with it!

This used to offend me, until I remembered that I had won.

Now, I always reply: "Of course, you're right."

Thank you, Dale Carnegie.

They're pretty much like one guy with emphysema suing American Tobacco - except without the automatic public sympathy or mountain of crushing medical bills to point to. To win, and win repeatedly, they've got to have a hell of an argument...and the fact that after losing in court Warners has to resort to trying to separate them from their legal counsel in a last ditch effort to prevail reinforces that.

Any verdict for S&S is likely based in large part on sympathy due to the reasons you delineate, and more.

And the S&S attorneys should absolutely play that up.

Verdicts aren't about what's right, they are about who had the better argument.

And sometimes how confused the jury is....

And sometimes which attorney is prettier.... (seriously)

And sometimes which attorney/defendant/plaintiff seems like a jerk, and doesn't deserve to win...

Don't get me started.

There's a reason that the confidentiality of jury deliberations is protected. It's not based on respect of the process. It's based on horror.

 

[Distorted Humor]

I pay taxes on my royalties and advances.

Which is not property taxes. Were you to own a piece of commercial real estate instead of a piece of commercial IP you would pay the income on top of your property taxes which you pay whether your property is generating money or not. You even pay them if it's losing money. Once again, physical property and IP are treated very differently, with IP having many advantages, but arguments are made as if they were treated the same.

And, if and when I kick the bucket, I damn well expect my loved ones to keep getting my royalties.

Often, intellectual property is all that an author or artist has to leave their heirs.

Often a house full of junk is all that anybody has to leave their heirs. What's your point?

But in most places you don't pay property on stock, bonds, and my other types of property.