Heirs file claims to Marvel heroes

[crazy4wdw]

From the LA Times:

Heirs file claims to Marvel heroes
By Ben Fritz

September 21, 2009

Walt Disney Co. may not get full ownership of many of Marvel Entertainment's most famous superheroes if new copyright claims by the family of the late artist Jack Kirby have merit.

Four children of Kirby, who co-created a number of Marvel's best-known superheroes in the 1960s including the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Thor and the Hulk, have served 45 "notices of termination" to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. The notices seek to regain copyright control of certain characters.

Disney this month agreed to buy Marvel for $4 billion. Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man, Fox to the Fantastic Four and X-Men; Paramount and Universal have distribution rights for certain Marvel-produced films.

The notices were sent Wednesday.

The children of Kirby, who died in 1994, are being represented by Los Angeles law firm Toberoff & Associates, which has represented the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel in a similar claim against Warner Bros.

Kirby served as artist and co-plotter with writer Stan Lee on most of the characters in question.

Whereas Lee has been a public face of the company for decades, Kirby is less known. That's in part because Kirby left to work for competitor DC Comics in 1970.

Under copyright law, creators can seek to regain copyrights they previously assigned to a company 56 years after first publication and can give notice of their intentions up to 10 years before that.

Kirby's children would be eligible to claim their father's portion of the copyright of the Fantastic Four in 2017; the Hulk would come up in 2018 and X-Men in 2019. The copyrights would then run for 39 more years.

A representative for Marvel declined to comment. A Disney spokesperson said, "The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition."

Should their claims stand, the Kirby children could choose to assign their portion of the rights to current copyright holders for a fee or sell them to a new licensee.

 

[Bob Price]

I love these people. They create nothing. They do nothing. They are born to a certain family and think they are entitled. Tell them to talk to Walt Disney. He created Oswald and lost the rights to a crook. Then his company, 81 years later, would have to give up Al Michaels to get Oswald back. Now there is something to be upset about.

 

[wishdisney]

I love these people. They create nothing. They do nothing. They are born to a certain family and think they are entitled. Tell them to talk to Walt Disney. He created Oswald and lost the rights to a crook. Then his company, 81 years later, would have to give up Al Michaels to get Oswald back. Now there is something to be upset about.

maybe Kirby had mentioned in his Will about his children claiming the characters after he passed away.

 

[E-Rock]

These people are insane and just out for a quick buck obviously.

Even if the time for their potential rights to these characters had come up (which according to the article is still out about 8 years) Stan Lee is still living and I would guess have first copyright on any of these characters.

 

[TinaMedley]

I just find it interesting that they didn't file their suit until after Disney bought the rights to Marvel. If they were that worried about it, why didn't file their suit sooner?

 

[DisMomme]

I just find it interesting that they didn't file their suit until after Disney bought the rights to Marvel. If they were that worried about it, why didn't file their suit sooner?

Under copyright law, creators can seek to regain copyrights they previously assigned to a company 56 years after first publication and can give notice of their intentions up to 10 years before that.

One copyright dispute is at the 10 year max notification. I bet they were waiting for that one to come up so they could file for all together. I also wonder how long Marvel has been actively seeking to sell. It's possible they knew about this and waited to see if a sale would be made. No sense filing at the beginning of 2009 just to set your 10 year intentions if you have to go back and amend your suit because of a sale. I don't think that it was because Disney bought Marvel.

Of course I could be wrong and perhaps Disney and Disney cartoons were not well liked by the Father and did not fit his superhero cartoon image.

 

[kmk1180]

Nothing will come of this..
the artist who created a character was being paid by Marvel.
They got their compensation. Thus the artist doens't own the rights
to any character much less his kids.
unless they can prove the orginal artist had a contract when he was hired that stated he got a percentage of any character he created,
(which I doubt they do) they have no case.

Just another case of someone trying to get a quick check for nothing.

 

[doubletrouble_vb]

The interesting thing about this to me is that the stories Marvel is using are mostly post Jack Kirby. If you used the X-Men for example I think Professor X and Scott Summers are original in nature but the Beast and Jean aren't the same characters Kirby invented never mind Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and so forth. The original X-men broke up and Professor X went forth to find new students in the post Kirby era.

So...even if Kirby's kids could regain his rights they wouldn't gain the rights to the storylines that are being used to make the films (excepting the Fantastic Four).

 

[FigNewton]

Ok there are a number of issues at play here that the vast majority of people are simply unaware of. Jack Kirby was a free lancer not working under a work for hire contract (and apparently not under ANY contract) when these characters were created; work for hire did not exist at the time. Steven Grant (long time comics industry professional) wrote an excellent column on this subject specifically as it relates to Jack Kirby last week. If anyone is interested you can read it here.

Before anyone goes and forms extreme opinions on this subject, they owe it to themselves to self-educate a little here. Rest assure ownership of these characters (and many others) have been a topic of hot debate for MANY MANY YEARS. The fact that the window is now opening to begin the process of taking back Kirby's part of the ownership (and it is only part) is entirely coincidental. These things have been at work for a long long time, and it's been somewhat expected. Even Disney has acknowleged that the decision to purchase Marvel was made knowing that these issues were soon to arise.