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Superman and his Creators [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-01

Superman was created by wrter Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Schuster in 1938. The estate of Joe Scuster is suing Warner Bros. over international rights to the character.

The two creators sold their rights to National Periodical Publications, later to be Detective Comics, now just known as DC, for $130 and a 10 year contract to continue to producing more material.

They first tried to get back the rights in 1946, after the character and the comic became highly popular. The NY Supreme Court ruled that the rights sale was valid. As a result, DC stopped running the credit line showing they had created the character.

In 1948, in another suit, National paid them $94,013.16 for the rights to Superman and Superboy.

In 1969, still another suit determined that their grant of copyright included renewal rights.

In 1975, Siegel started a negative publicity campaign, and DC put back the "Created By Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel" back in the comic. Warner Bros. put that credit in the 1978 movie Superman, with Christopher Reeves, and it's been there ever since.

Schuster died in 1992 and his heirs re-granted the rights for $25,000 a year.

In 2001, the Siegel heirs got back their rights using a provision of the Copyright Act of 1976, and got a new offer for the movie rights from Warner Bros.

There was additional litigation in 2001. Then from 2004 to 2016, Schuster's and Siegel's heirs and DC were suing each other over the rights.

DC held the rights to Superman since then, until this new case came forward. Warner Bros. is, of course, licensing the rights from DC.

Marc Toberoff, the Schuster estate's attorney is using copyright laws from the U.K., Ireland, Canada and Australia for the lawsuit.

Filed in the Southern District of New York, Toberoff claims that the rights in Canada in 2021, and the rights in the other countries in 2017, reverted back to the estate.

"The copyright laws of countries with British legal tradition, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, contain provisions automatically terminating such assignments 25 years after an author's death, vesting in the Schuster Estate the co-authors undivided copyright interest in such countries."

Schuster died in 1992 and Siegel in 1996, so if the Schuster Estate wins its case it should also apply to Siegel's heirs.

With the upcoming, James Gunn directed, Superman coming out in a few months, Warner Bros. has a big stake in the case. This new Superman is supposed to be a reboot of the whole DC universe to try to get profitabily on a par with the Marvel universe.

Warner Bros. is saying the estate does not have a case.

"We fundamentally disagree with the merits of the lawsuit, and will vigorously defend our rights," said a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson.

Toberoff countered that they didn't have the rights;

"Yet the Defendants continue to exploit Superman across these jurisdictions without Schuster Estates' authorization, including in motion pictures, television series, and merchandise, in direct contravention of these countries' copyright law, which require the consent of all joint copyright owners to do so."

Toberoff is the requesting a cease and desist order for any use of the character until the case is adjudicated. That means blocking the release of the movie in not only those countries where the copyright is in dispute, but all use of the character everywhere. That would mean holding up the release of the movie, even in the United States.

Toberoff further stated: "We live in a global economy; Studios like DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. cannot expect foreign countries to respect and and enforce U.S. copyright laws amid rampant piracy, if we don't respect and enforce their copyright laws. The suit is not intended to deprive fans of their next Superman, but rather seeks compensation for Joe Schuster's fundamental contributions as the co-creator of Superman. The ball is in DC's and Warner Bros.' court to do the right thing."

So far, that one quote from the Warner Bros. spokesperson is all that they've put out. Otherwise, I'd be giving them equal time with their response to the case.

The story of comic book creators' rights being "stolen" is a common one. The writer is more important than the artist, who comic book publishers looked at as contract journeymen.

The other prime example is Jack Kirby. Stan Lee was the writer of the comic books that Jack Kirby illustrated for Marvel. Stan Lee eventually got rich, while Jack Kirby got nothing in comparison. There was a lawsuit by his family that got something, the amount of which has never been disclosed, and no matter what it was, it couldn't have been enough. But Jack Kirby was literally the co-creator and sometimes the creator of characters like the Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk, X-men, and The Avengers, in the 60s, and even Captain America with Joe Simon in 1940.

So, it's no wonder that the creator's estates have come looking for compensation.

Superman on the screen has been around a long time. First, a 15 part serial in 1948, Superman and the Mole Men movie in 1951 with George Reeves, and the Superman television series, again with George Reeves, from 1952 to 1958. The first two seasons were in black and white, and the rest were wisely filmed in color, even though color television did not yet exist.

While the Phantom was the first superhero type in a comic strip in 1936, everyone agrees that Superman is the first superhero comic book character.

Even the character of Captain Marvel had its origins back in the 40s, again with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. It's not the Captain Marvel you know from Marvel Comics, it's the same as the superhero in the movie Shazam, who really never gets a name. I wonder what the rights situation on that character is. Captain Marvel had a red suit and had that lightning bolt on his chest just like in Shazam. It's the wizard who had the name Shazam, not the superhero.

Creators rights and copyright are important for any author or artist. With the internet, artificial intelligence software that can take someone's work and manipulate it, it creates a new era. So does having artificial intelligence create pictures and text and movies. Who's the creator then?

We have seen lawsuits already for artificial intelligence large language models scraping information from all over the place that they don't own or have the rights to.

This will not be the simple case that Warner Bros. spokesperson may think they have. Copyright law is complex. That is already borne out by the cases about Superman that stretch back all the way to the 40s.

I'm rooting for Schuster and Siegel's Estates to collect their fair share of what the character has generated over the years. The party to this case that hasn't been mentioned by the Estate's lawyer is, of course, DC. I expect that one to be filed either after this case or concurrently.

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