[Infowarrior] - Cartoonist’s Heirs Seek to Reclaim Rights

[Richard Forno]

In Wake of Disney-Marvel Deal, Cartoonist’s Heirs Seek to Reclaim Rights
By Michael Cieply
and Brooks Barnes
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/in-wake-of-disney-marvel-deal-cartoonists-heirs-seek-to-reclaim-rights/?hp

The Walt Disney Company’s proposed $4 billion acquisition of Marvel  
Entertainment may come with a headache: a brand-new superhero  
copyright dispute.

Heirs to the comic-book artist Jack Kirby, who has been credited as  
the co-creator of characters and stories behind Marvel mainstays like  
the “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four,” among many others, last week sent 45  
notices of copyright termination to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures,  
Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and others  
who have been making films and other forms of entertainment based on  
the characters.

The legal notices expressed an intent to regain copyrights to some  
creations as early as 2014, according to a statement from Toberoff &  
Associates, a Los Angeles firm that helped win a court ruling last  
year returning a share of the copyright in Superman to heirs of the  
character’s co-creator, Jerome Siegel.

Reached by telephone on Sunday, Mr. Toberoff declined to elaborate on  
the statement. A spokeswoman for Marvel had no immediate comment.  
Disney said in a statement, “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.” Fox, Sony, Paramount and  
Universal had no comment.

Marvel shareholders must still approve the sale of the company to  
Disney, which is already battling criticism from some Wall Street  
analysts that Marvel comes with too messy an array of rights  
agreements. The worry is that Disney will have a hard time immediately  
executing a coordinated exploitation of Marvel’s various brands.

Sony has the film rights to Spider-Man in perpetuity, for instance,  
while Fox has the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Paramount has a  
distribution agreement for Marvel’s next few self-produced movies,  
including a second “Iron Man” film. Meanwhile, Hasbro has certain toy  
rights and Universal holds Florida theme park rights to Spider-Man and  
the Incredible Hulk, among other characters.

Mr. Kirby, who died in 1994, worked with the writer-editor Stan Lee to  
create many of the characters that in the last decade have become some  
of the most valuable in a Hollywood that hungers for super-heroes. Mr.  
Kirby was involved with “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Mighty Thor,”  
“Iron Man,” “Spider-Man,” and “The Avengers,” among others.

The window for serving notice of termination on the oldest of the  
properties opened several years ago, and will remain open for some  
time under the law. But Disney’s announced purchase gives a new reason  
for anyone with claims on Marvel to stake out a position.

Under copyright law, the author or his heirs can begin a process to  
regain copyrights a certain period of years after the original grant.  
If Mr. Kirby’s four children were to gain the copyright to a co- 
created character, they might become entitled to a share of profits  
from films or other properties using it. They might also find  
themselves able to sell rights to certain characters independently of  
Marvel, Disney, or the various studios that have licensed the Marvel  
properties for their hit films.

In July, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that Warner Brothers and  
its DC Comics unit had not violated rights of the Siegel heirs in  
handling internal transactions related to Superman, but an earlier  
ruling had already granted the heirs a return of their share in the  
copyright. In the late 1990s, Mr. Toberoff represented a television  
writer, Gilbert Ralston, who sued Warner over the rights to the film  
“Wild, Wild West.” The suit was ultimately settled.

Copyright issues have become increasingly difficult for Hollywood, as  
it continues to trade on characters and stories that were created  
decades ago, but are now subject to deadlines and expiration dates  
under federal copyright law.