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Paul Simpson Simpson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 April 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 939
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| Posted: 10 January 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | 1
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Lets hope the courts do get the facts from the mouths of the people that were there. Of course no matter what comes out in court the only Jack did it crowd will never accept that it happened any other way.
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Paul Simpson Simpson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 April 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 939
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| Posted: 10 January 2010 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | 2
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Are the heirs suing for Devil Dinosaur,The Eternals and Machine Man? Are these properties not profitable enough to be bothered with?
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David Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3091
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 1:24am | IP Logged | 3
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The heirs aren't suing over anything.
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Regan Tyndall
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 November 2008
Location: Taiwan
Posts: 293
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 2:09am | IP Logged | 4
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Wouldn't it be nice if, just for once, the corporation in power (in this case, Marvel, or Disney, or whatever-the-f*** it is now), would take the high road and attempt to work out some mutually satisfactory solution. Then, the plaintiff (the Kirby heirs) might take the high road and omit the more absurd claims of their case. Ah, well. Better to fight for every last damn cent you can get, I guess.
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Matthew McCallum
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 2711
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 2:26am | IP Logged | 5
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I think we all need to keep in mind what is at play here: Properties that will be undergoing a copyright renewal between 2014-2019, meaning only work created during the period between 1959-1963 is being addressed in this first round.
Recall back in September the heirs' legal team sent out letters to 45 entities that have licensed Marvel properties notifying those entities of the heirs intent to contest the copyright on the properties which come up for renewal shortly (starting in 2014). Marvel has just now responded by launching suit to invalidate those claims. This is like the weight-in for the big fight. We've got a long way to go yet.
For those claiming the Kirby heirs are over-reaching with Spider-Man, let me play Devil's Advocate for a moment. We know the first published Spider-Man story was by Lee and Ditko in Amazing Fantasy 15 (with a Kirby cover drawn after the fact), but we also know that Kirby was developing Spider-Man with Lee before Ditko came into the mix and even drew a number of pages for the proposed strip. While Lee elected to go in a different direction with Ditko, whatever portion of the character that Kirby helped develop and which wound up in the final published creation is appropriate to make a claim. Succeeding, that's a different matter.
What is also likely to be contested are re-publication rights, and given that Spider-Man appeared in a number of Kirby drawn comics as a guest-star, that would put the character in play. Additionally, I believe those re-publication rights would also extend to adaptation by other media, so you see how that could get the Kirby heirs foot in the door if Hollywood wants to lift one of Stan and Jack's stories for the next Fantastic Four movie.
Edited by Matthew McCallum on 11 January 2010 at 2:27am
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Knut Robert Knutsen
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Joined: 22 September 2006
Posts: 7374
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 2:57am | IP Logged | 6
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The point that undermines Kirby's claim is that (almost) everything he drew at Marvel was written adited by Stan Lee. Stan Lee was an employee ( if not the only employee) and everything he did was work-for-hire. Any title he created, any script he wrote, every part of the plot created or suggested by him is work-for-hire. Everything that came about as a result of changes he asked for, developments he thought of is work-for-hire. If Stan Lee in his first FF script writes Monster, elastic man, Invisible Girl and Human Torch in jump suits, that describes everything that Kirby designed. He may have designed it wonderfully, amazingly and in a way that further inspired Lee, but he designed what he was told to. At the time, most of what Kirby did was invented "on the fly". There was precious little time or room for Kirby to fully develop things and bring them to Lee. The only thing that gives them a "wedge" to say it's not work-for-hire is the fact that Kirby was technically a freelancer. But I don't think that's going to be enough.
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David Ferguson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2007
Location: Ireland
Posts: 6782
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 7:05am | IP Logged | 7
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Where does this one leave Steve Ditko?? Can he claim The X-Men, Iron Man, etc.. *** From what I've read, Ditko has NO interest in claiming any money from Marvel. He just wants equal credit for creating Spider-man.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 7:45am | IP Logged | 8
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Wouldn't it be nice if, just for once, the corporation in power (in this case, Marvel, or Disney, or whatever-the-f*** it is now), would take the high road and attempt to work out some mutually satisfactory solution.•• Would have been "nice" if Kirby, when he had his own company, had "taken the high road" and treated his own employees differently, too. Perhaps then he, and his heirs, would have a leg to stand on. As it is, this reads, and has always read, altogether too much as "You mean the rules that apply to everybody else apply to ME??"
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Rick Whiting
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Joined: 22 April 2004
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 10:11am | IP Logged | 9
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I've read on another message board that Kirby didn't sign a "work for hire" contract when he was helping to create the MU. So does this mean that the Kirby heirs have a good chance of successfully gaining the copyrights of these characters?
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Kevin Brown
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Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 8939
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 10:40am | IP Logged | 10
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There is always a chance. Whether they actually get them is another matter.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | 11
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I've read on another message board that Kirby didn't sign a "work for hire" contract when he was helping to create the MU.•• I'll bet he didn't sign an agreement to work on paper, with pencils, either. He was a Marvel employee. And that was how the game was played.
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John Peter Britton
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Joined: 17 May 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 9129
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| Posted: 11 January 2010 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | 12
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All anyone can do is to wait and see!
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Topic Closed)
