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Aaron Smith
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Posted: 04 June 2011 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | 1  

I just glanced at the article that someone linked to a few pages ago, the article that shows some covers for the new first issues. Does Batman really have to be in BOTH Justice League books? Is he Wolverine now, he has to be on every team? 
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 04 June 2011 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | 2  

I firmly believe that S/S estates are pursuing this to license the rights
back to DC/TW. To keep the portions of the character that they can
win and pursue there own avenues would only damage the goose that
lays the golden egg. It seems to me that they just want to make sure
the get financially compensated for the use of what they may
eventually own.
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 04 June 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | 3  

Weren't Siegel and Shuster on a work-for-hire agreement??

Much as I hate to see people get screwed over, they surely must have realised what they were getting in to.

 

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Robert White
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Posted: 04 June 2011 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 4  

If memory serves, Siegel and Shuster may have created Superman before they signed their contracts with DC. I think this is the root of the lawsuit. Someone please correct me on this if I'm wrong.
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Kevin Brown
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Posted: 04 June 2011 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | 5  

If memory serves, Siegel and Shuster may have created Superman before they signed their contracts with DC. I think this is the root of the lawsuit. Someone please correct me on this if I'm wrong.

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They created a character called "The Super-Man" prior to working for National.  However, they were working for National a year before selling them "Superman".  That character they revamped from the previous one and tried to sell as a comic strip.  When that failed, they sold to National.

 

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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 2:46am | IP Logged | 6  

Everything Siegel and Shuster created and established for the Superman strip in the notes and artwork they (or their representative) presented to DC Comics (i.e. National) for sale was copyrighted to them, and this copyright was transferred and it is this that is reverting.

With the first sale, copyright to the character was transferred to DC and everything created subsequently (even by Siegel and Shuster) was work-for-hire and belongs to DC Comics in perpetuity (or until the copyrights fully lapse).

So every development and alteration (including all of Superman's powers, his current look, and all of his supporting cast except his parents and Lois) belongs to DC. Except for some parts of Superboy (but not all), which is a separate dispute.

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Brad Krawchuk
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 8:51am | IP Logged | 7  

And Knut has managed to explain in one succinct post something that everyone else seems incapable of understanding. 

<golf clap>
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Brad Krawchuk
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 8:54am | IP Logged | 8  

(when I say "everyone else" I don't necessarily mean here on the board, I mean all the other websites that write about this issue with all the panic of "Oh my God, DC has to make Superman from Thanagar/call him Superb-Man/change his cape to green from red otherwise there will be no more Superman comics EVER!!!" without understanding what's really going on). 
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Ray Brady
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 9:22am | IP Logged | 9  

"Everything Siegel and Shuster created and established for the Superman strip in the notes and artwork they (or their representative) presented to DC Comics (i.e. National) for sale was copyrighted to them, and this copyright was transferred and it is this that is reverting."
-----
Any idea when that copyright becomes public domain?
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Kevin Brown
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 9:24am | IP Logged | 10  

Can we create a separate thread for this Siegel & Shuster discussion?  Thanks.
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Don Zomberg
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 9:43am | IP Logged | 11  

The Aquaman cover saddens me; he HAS to be snarling? They couldn't even give him a kind of defiant/give-me-your-best-shot grin?

 

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Don Zomberg
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Posted: 05 June 2011 at 9:44am | IP Logged | 12  

Is he Wolverine now?

Batman has been for quite some time.

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