Jack Kirby Heirs Reclaim Marvel/Disney Rights 380
lbalbalba writes "Heirs to comic book legend Jack Kirby sent 45 notices of copyright termination to Marvel Entertainment, prospective Marvel buyer Disney, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and others studios that that hold licensed media rights to Marvel characters. Some rights could revert to the heirs as soon as 2014, for characters that are among the hottest in Hollywood: The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Avengers, and others. Among other things the heirs' demand could cause problems for Disney's as yet unconsummated purchase of Marvel."
One begs the question... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why?
What is Mr Kirby Jr's stance on all this? Does he want money?
He didn't do any of the work, he just inherited copyrights.
Worse than a patent troll.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
What should worry you is the fact that, thanks to Disney and massive amounts of bribery to congress, "copyright" now means that works don't pass into the public domain for nearly a century.
Disney, and their friends, have quite literally raped the public domain dry and given nothing back.
I can't fault Kirby's heirs for trying to regain some form of control on characters who have been treated like shit for years, but realistically, the characters themselves would be public domain by now in any sane system.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it shouldn't matter to you.
But it is of interest to others around here.
Believe it or not, some people who read/post here are a little on the nerdy side. And some of them read comic books.
Then there's the occasional person who just comes on to a site labeled "News for Nerds" to attempt to boast about how he's not really interested in a specific aspect of nerd subculture.
Those people are sad. They are nerds, but rather than revel in it, they are desperately trying to convince themselves they're not.
Subtext of these lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
"Give us money so we go away!"
Re:One begs the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you have that backwards? Although the ideal is to let these works become public domain upon the artist's death, the second best choice for holder of the copyrights should be the SON of the creator, not some cold soulless corporation.
But don't worry. I'm sure Marvel and Disney will ultimately win. At the end of the day the artist/singer/inventor and his family almost-always get the shaft, and the corporations almost-always win by bribing the appropriate politicians. Look at what happened to the inventor of FM Radio (bled dry in lawsuit-after-lawsuit by 1930s-era RCA until he eventually died - then they took over FM Radio for themselves).
Re:One begs the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he can and he should. What's the point of licensing a character if the licensee could wait for you to die and say "ha ha" and continue using that character?
Probably, but hey what's wrong with that? You don't seem to mind the movie studios making money from the characters. He most likely would like to protect the legacy of the comic book characters, and as a consequence the continued value of the character in the comic book marketplace.
So? What's the point of building an estate if you can't pass it to your children?
How so? His father actually created the comic book characters, not patented them and wait for something to come up with a similar idea.
I see nothing wrong here. The movie studios are having to follow the rules that THEY created...
Copyright or trademark? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At what cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Disney is quoted as saying they knew this was coming
And the rest of that, which was muttered under their breath, was: "We've already bribed the appropriate politicians and judges, so we're certain of victory. It's good to be a megarich megacorporation. Money is power to run the government."
IP boomerang (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Copyright issues would become easy again if copyrights ever expired and the copyrighted material entered the public domain. Of course, Hollywood has worked to try to keep that from happening. The lesson Hollywood will take away from this is: get Congress to overhaul copyright law so that nothing ever expires.
Or did they already manage that, and the Kirby properties are only expiring because they are old?
I know that copyrights used to need to be registered, and could be renewed only once, and the total life of a copyright was thus limited. Now copyright is automatic and lasts for the life of the creator of the work plus 95 years. (Likely this will be extended again, right around the time Mickey Mouse would enter the public domain... 2023, I think.)
steveha
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think there's anything stopping you from mounting your own take on, say, on Snow White or Cinderella. The problem is that Disney managed to get something of a stranglehold on the imagery.
What I despise about Disney is singing animals. Every fucking feature length cartoon of even a story like Pocahontas (which was so obnoxiusly inaccurate in every other respect) requires singing fucking animals. In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, they altered the rule slightly and had singing fucking gargoyles, but the effect is the same.
Disney degrades everything it touches. It's run by some of the most vile, cynical bastards the entertainment industry ever produced (and that's saying something). It isn't the public domain these repugnant monsters rape, it's cultures. I quite frankly shiver at the thought of them taking any more popular stories from the fables and myths any more cultures and twisting them by their sheer hatred of anything that doesn't have singing fucking animals into grotesque caricatures.
Maybe in the early days there was a great artistic impulse, but even ol' Walt himself pretty much gave up the ghost after Pinocchio and it all turned into unforgivable pap, endlessly recycling the inventiveness of the early years.
Re:GOOD FOR THEM. (Score:3, Insightful)
I love comics. I don't like super hero books. ... Marvel needs to get back to it's roots selling comics that everyone wants to read
The Marvel "comics that everyone wants to read" have always been about superheroes. You may not like superhero comics, or Marvel's current crop of them, or whatever, that's fine -- but suggesting that Marvel return to its "roots" by selling something other than superhero books is pretty silly.
Marvel/Disney will do what DC/Warner did (Score:4, Insightful)
for Superman/Superboy lawsuits.
First rename the characters or change the character to a different person being that character. Then drag the case on for years until a settlement is made.
Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Avengers, and others.
Bruce Banner is no longer The Incredible Hulk, the Rulk or Red Hulk absorbed his gamma powers and Skar The Hulk's son will replace the Hulk.
The Mighty Thor, Thunderstrike or Beta Ray Bill will have to sub in for Thor.
Iron Man, Tony Stark got lobotomized in trying to erase the super hero registration list from his head, Pepper Potts has her own suit of armor and James Rhodes can take over as War Machine for Iron Man.
Spider-Man, Eddie Brock is now Anti-Venom, can sub for Spider-Man as Peter Parker quits or loses his powers again. Either that or another Ben Reilly Spider-Clone.
The Avengers have changed so much, right now the Dark Avengers are fighting the New Avengers, but they could easily change the group's name to the Challengers or Defenders like the other groups Kirby didn't invent.
Captain America, James "Bucky" Barnes is the new Captain America and was The Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers is dead, but they are trying to bring him back, doubts are in if he'd still be Captain America or let Bucky keep the uniform. Other men have been Captain America in the past. The 1950's Captain America is still alive with Steve Roger's face.
Most of those characters have been so radically changed that they don't resemble the Kirby versions anymore. Besides I thought Stan Lee and Steve Ditko did Spider-Man and not Jack Kirby.
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
Groups like Pixar and studio Ghibli, on the other hand, continue to prove that something can be "family friendly" and still be entertaining for everyone.
Which is why Pixar vets don't currently control Disney, and Disney itself doesn't distribute Studio Ghibli films in North America OH WAIT
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have always wondered, why exactly, because for me, comic books are for those who are literacy-challenged and/or don't have a developed fantasy.
For you, maybe. Others aren't so narrow minded, and realise that like any other expressive medium, comics can be used to cover the entire artistic range, from high art to complete crap. Only some of them "are for those who are literacy-challenged and/or don't have a developed fantasy."
Re:One begs the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know. You're exactly right. It's not fair.
Just the other day, I saw a man building a wall on the outside of someone's house. I thought to myself, that wall is increasing the value of this property and indeed all the properties around it by a considerable amount. Why should that man be satisfied with just one payment. His wall could last forever. Shouldn't his creativity and hard work be rewarded during that time? The owner of that house an others nearby should pay that man a fair licence fee for his work for the rest of his life.
Your argument has further persuaded me that not only should they pay the money to the wall builder, but also to his heirs. After all, they are his family, and he was working for them while he built those walls. True, they didn't lay a brick themselves, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to profit from their father's honest labour till the end of their days. And their heirs in turn should be able to enjoy the benefits. It's their moral right.
When I think how copyright has consistently delivered fresh innovation and content in the form of superheroes like Superman(1938), Batman(1939), and Spiderman(1962), I realise that the joy they ring to millions should mean financial benefit for the children, grandchildren, and great grand children of the authors. Who knows? Maybe with all the money they earn and such solid intellectual property rights, they'll go on to produce other famous superheroes who careers will last longer than most nation states. After all, copyright is the great motivator of new creative content!
Re:Inheritance (Score:4, Insightful)
I realize you intended this as flamebait, but you are hardly a capitalist.
Either someone owns his property or he is simply borrowing it from the state. The former is the heart of capitalism. The latter is socialism.
If someone truly owns his property, then it is his to do with as he sees fit. That includes giving it to his children when he dies. If he is only borrowing it from the state, however, then it is quite right to take it back when he dies.
Part of why parents work so hard is to provide for their children. Is it ok for parents to provide for their children? What about parents who die when the children are still young? Should the money be taken back as soon as they are 18?
If you get an inheritance and decide to give most of it to the state, that's fine. When I see you giving a hundred million of YOUR inheritance back to the state so you can live off your own labor, I'll consider your ideas seriously. Until then, I'll accept that they are just the result of class envy.
Re:One begs the question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad your analogy sucks in 18 different ways. First, a brick wall doesn't continually generate money. Copyrighted works do, as long as there are customers to buy them. Second, you might have a point if it was a matter of an author's heirs holding onto the rights vs them sliding into the public domain. But that's not the case - it's heirs vs a famously greedy conglomerate.
Re:One begs the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard decision whether to mod this or comment, so I chose to comment so I can correct the erroneous information here.
What you wrote is ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT. Intellectual property and intangible assets are absolutely part of one's estate (and also come into play in divorce proceedings, for that matter -- See the divorce of Tom Clancy) and are recognized as such under the law. If you disagree on a moral level with this practice, that's another matter, but to state that "it is not part of an estate" is spreading misinformation. I work at an IP consulting firm, and we are frequently asked to value intellectual works for use in estate planning. These can range from rights of publicity, to copyrights/copyrighted works, to trademarks, among other assets.
You say that "to consider intellectual works part of an estate diminishes human capital and is an insult to those who created it." I think you have this backwards. When the esteemed playwright George Abbott died, for example, his estate was left with the rights to his many copyrighted plays, which could then earn them royalties on performances. Similarly, after Marlon Brando's death, the demand to use his name and likeness did not immediately disappear. His heirs controlled his rights to publicity and had the power to decide when it was appropriate to use his voice or other personal aspects to endorse products for a fee. Don't you think that Marlon Brando would have wanted his legacy to continue to provide for his loved ones? Wouldn't it be more of an insult to George Abbott (whose "human capital" is at issue) to have his works just be taken away on the day of his death instead of allowing him to build something that could continue to benefit his family?
Copyright law may be totally frakked in its current iteration, but that is a completely separate issue. The fact is, people work to build an estate -- but this work does not always take the same form. Some people build corporations, invest is stocks, or gather cash; others create works of art. You would never just assume that a corporation should automatically become public because the owner died, so why should that novel or that play immediately lose all of its value to the owner? Somebody spent their life working on that (instead of pursuing other avenues of wealth accumulation) so those assets are what they have to pass along in their estate -- Or should everyone just give up creating original works to pursue entrepreneurial or big business goals so they can provide for their families after they are gone?
Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One begs the question... (Score:1, Insightful)
Is this Wall being copied, traced and inked, then licensed to be made into a movie, and published to all corners of the world and constantly generating an income flow?
No, it's just a wall.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
You *do* realize that Disney makes these films to children, right? Are you going to criticize children's books next for having an overwhelmingly large number of talking animals?
Re:It's about time (Score:1, Insightful)
Without Stan Lee they wouldn't have become popular. Without Marvel they wouldn't have been made into movies and become enormously successful. They are just characters, they are worth a lot of money because they have been promoted over the last 40 years, not because they are brilliant ideas. It's the same thing as programming, does the programmer think he is worth more than the CEO? Oh yeah, forgot, I am on slashdot.
Re:Annoying (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you want to be able to end an agreement after you make it, make that part of the agreement. Otherwise, well, you'll know better next time."
Well, Marvel entered into that contract knowing full well that the family could petition for the rights after the authors death. They knew that regardless of what they contract said, under federal law the rights they were purchasing would be for only a limited time after Kirby's death. They knew that if they wanted to continue to have those rights after his death they would have to pay for them. They knew what the copyright laws were at the time to contract was signed, and that should have been calculated into the price they were willing to pay for the rights.
Based on both parties knowledge of the copyright law, it would be unfair would to give Marvel a windfall by changing the rules that both parties entered the agreement under.
Re:Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm well aware of the target audience. That's the tragedy. And the animals in most fables are archetypal, not simply blue prints for toys that will be sold at McDonalds,
Re:Wow! (Score:1, Insightful)
And hopefully when you die a corporation will seize your house and bank accounts and leave your family penniless. Why is the only person that can't benefit from an artist's work the artist and their family? They are the ONLY ones that should have that right. Most are forced to sign over rights. I know this first hand. I just had a film taken from me that I spent four years making and that I made singlehandedly. I lost it over a partner using a contract against me. He broke several laws doing it but still the contract won in the end and I hadn't the money to fight him. Artists are treated like scum in this world and we get it from both companies stealing our work and the public at large. After a while you have to say why bother creating something in the first place?
Re:One begs the question... (Score:3, Insightful)
We didn't ask Stan or Jack or anyone else to make us a comic with a spider mutant in it. Without them, we wouldn't have that as a part of our culture. Like it or not, the parts of a culture which hold us together are those things we can share everywhere.
A wall is a known thing, and if I want one built I can stab the guy who made it and get someone else to build the same thing. They'd be different, but not in any way that's important. No child is going to want to grow up to be a plaster wall.
You can't stab Beethoven or Jack Kirby or Marilyn Monroe or Pablo Neruda and have someone else step in and make it work. We know what happens when they change directors on a trilogy even - not the creative mind behind the work, or the writer, just some schmoe they brought in to turn a script into a movie.
People do things differently, and sometimes the works resonate with people, and have value above that of their materials, or the work it would take to recreate it. This is called intellectual property, it has value, and it can be handed down from a father to his son just like a piece of gold or a hot rod. The difference is, at some point in its life it stops belonging to you. Yes, the government takes your intellectual property and gives it to the masses. How socialist of them! Of course, the creator is most likely dead by then, and he can no longer hand it down through the generations like a piece of gold. Instead, the people get to do with it as they wish. If it still has value, it must be a powerful artifact and worthy of keeping around and alive for so long. Let's face it, Britney Spears is not going to be all the rage when her copyrights expire, but someone will. And whatever that is will someday be as free as a Martin Luther speech, or Dante's Inferno, or The Holy Bible, a Bach Sinfonia, or a Van Gogh painting. All because of these words the founding fathers wrote: "... for a limited time". If you don't like it, find a country with a Constitution you approve of. Unless you're already in one and your rant is sour grapes, if so then neener neener.
Re:One begs the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
An old, flawed analogy. I have seen it so many times, it's truly sad that people still come up with it.
This man is ordered to build the wall, and in advance knows how much he's going to get paid - basically no risk there, do the job well and get paid. The owner of the property has a good idea on how much the value is of that wall, based on the effect of the wall and the quality of the workmanship of the mason. The wall wasn't the mason's idea, it was the property owner's idea.
This is similar to a company ordering creative work: think of all the artists working for Disney. They do not get copyrights paid over their arts, they get a salary for what they are doing. The Pocahontas movie was not their idea, it was the company's idea. They just implemented it. Or a research company developing a chip (e.g. ARM), where the designers of said chip do not get royalties but they do get their salary. ARM later tries to make money by licensing that design. Again no risk for the creative people, they have their money in advance. The idea of investing a lot of money in a energy efficient micro processor was also not their idea, they merely implemented it.
When an independent author is writing a book, no-one ordered him to do so. He wants it because he likes it, or because he thinks he has a great idea and a great story to tell and hopes to sell this story. Thus he owns the copyrights, and can license it to anyone he likes. The independent author doesn't get any money for writing the book, he invests a lot of time (and money: to eat and pay the rent while writing) in the book, but has also take a great risk. The book may flop and he ends up with nothing. The book may also become a bestseller, and he ends up rich.
It is basic business here: the greater the risk taken, the greater the potential rewards. That's all. And now please stop that nonsense of wanting to be paid forever for something that someone else asked you to do.
Re:One begs the question... (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't make any less sense or more sense for intellectual property either. It's just that we don't typically rent from builders - they do work for hire because that's the standard way of doign business in construction. But a builder *could* conceivably retain ownership of a house and charge rent or licence fee. Arguably that's exactly what some companies do: for example, set up a holding company to construct a new building, keep ownership, and sublet to tenants.
It would probably become a nightmare to manage all the cross-licencing for units smaller than a single building, though. Which is sort of exactly the situation we get with code smaller than independently compiled binary modules - and for some 'remixed' media, like say Mystery Science Theater 3000, where multiple entities own different parts and clearing the individual rights gets tricky.
Hence the situation with things like Marvel and Tolkien. Multiple creative bits added by lots of different builders over time. Even merchandising is a creative act.
Re:One begs the question... (Score:1, Insightful)
For your analogy to actually work, the purchaser of the wall would have to be making money by the walls existence. Walls serve a completely different purpose than artwork and characters created with the intent of telling a story.
An artist who specifically sells their work to a buyer, such as a painting or a sculpture, would normally only reserve the right to display the work in their portfolio or something along those lines. A work of art created in this fashion is created with a different mindset from the get go.
Obviously Mr. Kirby created the characters with some of contractual clause stating that he and his heirs would own the characters/ideas that he created. I can't think of the last time I saw a construction contractor with a similar clause in their contract.
Maybe with all the money they earn and such solid intellectual property rights, they'll go on to produce other famous superheroes who careers will last longer than most nation states. After all, copyright is the great motivator of new creative content!
Should a character be transferred to a corporation just because while they were leasing him the artist died? Maybe all the money in the artists bank account should be transferred over the institution where the artist saved their money. Or maybe the house that they owned should be transferred over to the state or country that they lived in. This would maybe solve the housing market crisis as a house could only be sold or transferred while the owner is still alive. It would also solve our financial crisis as banks and lending institutions could just absorb all the money everyone owns when they die.
Re:Annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
They snatched the property from its owner, extracted economic rent (if you don't know what "economic rent" is, look it up) using it for decades, and now they might have to return control to the creators descendants? What a fucking crying shame.
Where the fuck does this conception that, of all things, contracts must be absolutely fucking sacrosanct come from? Heaven forbid that someone be able to get out from under and abusive and exploitative contract! That'd be the end of society as we know it!
Re:Wow! (Score:1, Insightful)
See what I said above:
This is Disney being a distributor, not a producer. They're not over at Pixar/Ghibli telling them what to put in their movies, they just slap their names on the boxes, put out the ads, and ship them out.
Do they add unskippable content to DVD/Blu-rays and take full advantage of DRM? I think they do more than distribute. Also, being on a long leash is still being on a leash.
Re:At what cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
The character design is trade-marked.
Trademark does not protect characters or any other artistic work. Saying "the character design is trade-marked [sic]" only shows that you do not know what trademark is.
Trademark exists only for avoiding confusion over the source of a product - the trademark protects the company that holds the trademark; the trademark does not protect the mark itself. In fact, trademarks that include art of any kind are generally copyrighted in order to protect the mark.
When Steamboat Willie comes into the public domain you get to write and publish derivatives based on the characters and story of Steamboat Willie and only Steamboat Willie. You do not get the Mouse of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. You do not get The Phantom Blot.
That all depends on what the current rulings on "derivative works" are, and how much uniqueness the derivative works bring to the character in question - if it's considered to not have changed enough, the courts can rule that it's the same character and whatever small changes there were aren't enough to invoke a new copyright. (The story of the newer work would still benefit from the copyright, and you probably couldn't explicitly reference events in it, but the character wouldn't get extended protection from the work's later date.)
Really, though, AFAIK this sort of situation has never been tested in court. Copyrighted works have been sealed up so long that everything was either out of copyright long before courts could even spell "I.P.", or are part of the mass of works waiting for The Mouse to fall into the public domain.
Re:It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)
Where do you get that from the legislation? The section you quote starts out:
In the case of any work other than a work made for hire...
It seems works for hire are not subject to transfer, which makes sense since you purchased the work, not licensed the rights to it.
Yeah, sorry, terminology slip due to the fact that the OP was using the term loosely. This wasn't work for hire; Kirby was a freelancer who sold the rights to Marvel.
Yea, my guess that, if lawsuits result, the outcome will depend on whether it was a work for hire or a transfer of rights by a freelance writer.
Realistically, I think Disney will simply settle; it's in their best interest to get clear rights, the cost of which should be rounding error in the purchase price.
The deal will probably be structured to let Disney write off the costs like they do any other cost associated with development; in the end money will change hands to make the problem go away. Not that that's anything new, it's no different than paying a writer to pen a sequel when you get sued over profits and points. You don't care if they never write it, you just make the problem go away in a manner that avoids upsetting your current accounting practices. That's why you gotta love Hollywood accounting, where the more money you make the more you lose (on paper).
Re:It's about time (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't matter to Mr. Kirby, who has no worries now. He's dead, Jim. We're not going to get him to produce any more comics.
Why is copyright so long, again? And why is a corporation allowed to hold copyrights in the first place? The Constitution says "authors and inventors". Corporations neither create nor invent, and I don't see how letting a corporation hold copyrights and patents is legal. Can one of the resident /. lawyers explain this to me?
Re:Inheritance (Score:3, Insightful)
Either someone owns his property or he is simply borrowing it from the state.
BINGO! have you read the US Constitution? It allows authors and inventors limited time monopolies on their writings and discoveries, NOT ownership. And it isn't the government who owns the work, it's the people. Once a work reaches the public domain it belongs to everyone. Not the sate; the state can't even regulate a public domain work.
This "property" belongs to all of us. Its creator only has a limited time monopoly on its distribution. Too bad we, the people, have let them, the corporate greedheads, steal our property and call it theirs.