{"id":12528,"date":"2008-04-01T15:36:31","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T22:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/04\/01\/siegel-heirs-get-partial-copyright-to-superman.html"},"modified":"2015-05-07T16:38:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T22:38:09","slug":"siegel_heirs_get_partial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/01\/siegel_heirs_get_partial.html","title":{"rendered":"Siegel heirs get partial copyright to Superman"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Great Scott!<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character. The ruling left intact Time Warner’s international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit.<\/p>\n

And it reserved for trial questions over how much the company may owe the Siegel heirs for use of the character since 1999, when their ownership is deemed to have been restored. Also to be resolved is whether the heirs are entitled to payments directly from Time Warner’s film unit, Warner Brothers, which took in $200 million at the domestic box office with \u201cSuperman Returns\u201d in 2006, or only from the DC unit’s Superman profits.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

All of which may — due to appeals and negotiations — put the kibosh on a Superman Returns sequel and the announced Justice League of America film. Not to mention future animated Superman projects. A similar 2006 ruling on “Superboy” is the main reason why the current Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon refers to Kal-El as “Superman<\/em>” instead.<\/p>\n

\n

The ruling specifically upheld the Siegels’ copyright in the Superman material published in Detective Comics’ Action Comics Vol. 1. The extent to which later iterations of the character are derived from that original was not determined by the judge.<\/p>\n

[…] By 1937, the pair were offering publishers comic strips in which the classic Superman elements — cape, logo and Clark Kent alter-ego — were already set. When Detective Comics bought 13 pages of work for its new Action Comics series the next year, the company sent Mr. Siegel a check for $130, and received in return a release from both creators granting the company rights to Superman \u201cto have and hold forever,\u201d the order noted.<\/p>\n

In the late 1940s, a referee in a New York court upheld Detective Comics’ copyright, prompting Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster to drop their claim in exchange for $94,000. More than 30 years later, DC Comics (the successor to Detective Comics) gave the creators each a $20,000-per-year annuity that was later increased to $30,000. In 1997, however, Mrs. Siegel and her daughter served copyright termination notices under provisions of a 1976 law that permits heirs, under certain circumstances, to recover rights to creations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The heirs to Shuster get their turn at bat starting in 2013.<\/p>\n

\n

Compensation to the Siegels would be limited to any work created after their 1999 termination date. Income from the 1978 \u201cSuperman\u201d film, or the three sequels that followed in the 1980s, are not at issue. But a \u201cSuperman Returns\u201d sequel being planned with the filmmaker Bryan Singer (who has also directed \u201cThe Usual Suspects\u201d and \u201cX-Men\u201d) might require payments to the Siegels, should they prevail in a demand that the studio’s income, not just that of the comics unit, be subject to a court-ordered accounting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Time Warner is expected to appeal.<\/p>\n

Hrm. On the one hand, anything that pokes Big Media in the eyeball and restores some measure of rights to the creators of works is, to my mind, probably a good thing. On the other hand, the likely effect on stuff I<\/em> want to see makes me (selfishly, to be sure) a bit less sanguine. We’ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Great Scott!  A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,852,28,41,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-comics","category-dc-cinematic-univese","category-media-moguls","category-media-movies","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45697,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/08\/the-last-suit-of-krypton.html","url_meta":{"origin":12528,"position":0},"title":"The Last Suit of Krypton","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Oct-14 4:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Supreme Court not only declined to hear the gay marriage appeal, they also declined an appeal by the heirs of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the guys who created Superman, bringing to an end their attempt to take back the copyright for the character.Of course, unlike some other work-for-hire\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30664,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/17\/warner-wins-big-superman-ruling-vs-schuster-estate.html","url_meta":{"origin":12528,"position":1},"title":"Warner wins big Superman ruling vs Schuster estate","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-12 9:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I suspect we'll see an appeal.Reshared post from +Comicbook.comA judge has ruled that the family of Joe Shuster cannot pursue the copyrights to Superman. Embedded Link Warner Scores Major Victory in Superman Trial A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that a 1992 agreement between the heirs of Superman co-creator\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcomicbook.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F10%2FSuperman-First-Comic-Action-Comics-No-1-222x300.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30685,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/18\/a-justice-league-movie-will-get-started-real-soon-now-part-47-in-a.html","url_meta":{"origin":12528,"position":2},"title":"A "Justice League" movie will get started Real Soon Now (Part 47 in a …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 18-Oct-12 3:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A \"Justice League\" movie will get started Real Soon Now (Part 47 in a series)Warner Bros has been screwing around with the concept of a JL movie for, oh, decades. \u00a0While the Warner victory against the Shuster heirs clears things up a bit, there's still a lot of legal work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21327,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/19\/unblogged-bits-sun-19-jun-11-2330.html","url_meta":{"origin":12528,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Sun. 19-Jun-11 2330)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Jun-11 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... THE LEGAL VIEW: Super-style and the DCU Relaunch\u00a0|\u00a0The Beat - More on the DCnU reboot and the Siegel lawsuits. THE LEGAL VIEW: The DCU Relaunch and the Superman Copyright\u00a0|\u00a0The Beat - Interesting set of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3670,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/09\/free_mickey.html","url_meta":{"origin":12528,"position":4},"title":"Free Mickey!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Oct-02 1:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am a believer in free enterprise. I am a believer in Intellectual Property. I am a believer in the principle of copyright, as laid out in the Constitution. Individuals,...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137499,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/28\/a-long-awaited-copyright-thaw-begins-on-new-years-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":12528,"position":5},"title":"A long-awaited copyright thaw begins on New Years Day","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 28-Dec-18 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"After the last Disney-sponsored throttling of creative works passing from copyright status in the US to the public domain, we've had a freeze on such things, with anything published after 1922 being still deemed under copyright, with all the restrictions for use and re-use that carries. That happened in 1998,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50583,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12528\/revisions\/50583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}