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I don’t understand why the Warner Bros lot wasn’t draped in black starting the middle of this week. Because the studio should be mourning the imminent loss of a shitload of Superman dollars. I’ve finally got my hands on the entire 72-page ruling Wednesday of U.S. District Court Judge Stephen G. Larson who concluded: “After 70 years, Jerome Siegel’s heirs regain what he granted so long ago — the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics, Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics’ corporate sibling’s exploitation of the Superman.”
Think about it: Siegel sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130, and his heirs got back ownership of the character in 1999 and can possibly lay claim to $50+ million of Warner Bros’ and/or its DC Comics’ cash. The Shusters look to clean up before too long, too. If you want all the Superman lawsuit’s juicy background, Portfolio‘s Amy Wallace did a detailed article here.
For instance, Joanne Siegel (who’d been the sketch model for Lois Lane) wrote a 3-page letter back in 2002 to then Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons calling the company “greedy” and “heartless” and acting “just like the Gestapo … your company wants to strip us naked of our legal rights… Is that the reputation you want?” The answer is a resounding yes. Because for years Warner tied with Disney for its aggressive unwillingness to settle these kinds of legal disputes and its absurd eagerness to risk going to court. Its corporate counsel would hire litigation piranhas hungry for billable hours who pledge to make each case go away by exhausting the patience and resources of the creators or rightsholders. It’s a thoroughly effective but completely disgusting way of doing business.
Yet it’s interesting that, especially lately, Warner has lost or settled some very pricey lawsuits, especially those pursued by that Malibu Robin Hood of a litigator, Marc Toberoff, who has taken on Big Media on behalf of creators and their heirs for Superman and Superboy, The Dukes of Hazzard (read about it here), The Wild Wild West, It’s Alive, and so on. The majors both fear him and hate him, with good reason: he’s a relentless opportunist, which is exactly what’s needed.
Finally, lest any rabid Superman fans blame the Siegels or Shusters for fucking up a Superman Returns sequel, or a Justice League of America movie featuring Superman (or not), know this: Warner execs fucked up both all by themselves. There’s been enough backstory surrounding these pics to fill a book. I say there wouldn’t have been if only Superman Returns had been any good…
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I am probably one of the rabid Superman fans you’re referring to (not the Singer movie, thanks), and I have to tell you that most if not all comic book readers will REJOICE at this news. Our love is for the *creators* (and why wouldn’t it be?), not the studios who make mediocre movies out of their works.
From childhood we all heard the depressing story of Siegel & Shuster and the rights to Superman. And I don’t think any of us ever thought this day would come.
This is FANTASTIC news for Superman fans. Finally it feels right.
Amen to your final comment. I will NEVER understand Hollywood “buying” a comic property and then completely “fing” them up by infusing what they see as great additional ideas.
Singers X-men films might have been great but Superman was NOT. And that isn’t the only example. When suits or creatives buy something why mess with it?
The reason the property is popular to start with is because the material is good to begin with. Trust the material you bought.
Would they screw with a great cup of morning coffee the way they have screwed with 80% of the comic book properties they have purchased/developed?
If Hollywood would stop trying to guess what the masses might want to buy maybe we would start seeing better stuff being developed, no matter the genre, in Hollywood.
Fans of Superman are split on this:
http://www.supermanhomepage.com/news.php?readmore=4741
http://blog.newsarama.com/?p=7615
Truly an interesting time, and thank you Nikki for mentioning this.
Well the upside is that Singer et al. can now claim the sequel didn’t happen due to “outside forces”, instead of admitting that it’s because the failed first film simply stunk.
You fail to mention one point though; Toberoff is the biggest scumbag in Hollywood.
When he takes these cases he gets his name tied to the rights no matter what so in the end he ends up leeching at least 50% ownership no matter what.
If you read the article this is quite telling:”Time Warner’s lawyers dispute these claims, saying, among other things, that the Siegel heirs have reneged on a settlement hammered out before Toberoff entered the picture.”
no one is totally innocent in this case.
Ouch!
This is going to hurt them. Especially if it leads to other suits by the heirs of other DC creators looking for a piece of the action.
I think the folks in Hollywood need to read some Adam Smith. Basically, it states that the world is not a zero-sum game and that the common sense handling of wealth, like paying fair shares for copyrights, in the end creates more wealth for everyone.
Now they’re going to have to shell out millions, either to the heirs, or to their own lawyers, for something that could have been avoided decades ago.
I would never settle with warner bros or any of its affiliates.
Michelle while Hollywood has certainly messed up their fair share of acquired properties, if they hadn’t messed with Superman, we’d have a merciless killer who can only jump really high, among other things.
Flight, Jimmy Olsen, and many other elements came from the radio serial and other places.
The Superman after the Golden Age comics (1938- late 40s), the modern Superman, is much different than the character who first appeared in Action Comics no. 1.
Many of the modern Superman’s best qualities did originate with the radio series of the late 40s, the George Reeves tv series, and the Chris Reeve feature films. The comics radically changed in 1986 with a major revamp of Superman’s origin and character.
By the way, nice to see that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t enjoy Superman Returns.
Honestly, the Shusters and Siegels have been compensated over and over again, and this is getting old. You guys can scream about “creator’s rights” all you want, but when you do work for hire, this is what happens. Shuster and Siegel sold the rights when they first agreed to do the work. Three separate times over the next few decades, DC gave them additional money–yet it still wasn’t enough. THEY’RE the greedy bastards, not DC.
Well, I might be the only one, but I adored “Superman Returns.”
Manny is obviously a WB shill (he posted the exact same comment over at the Wallace article).
Manny- your line means nothing- just because the heirs might have allowed Warners to settle for some small number, when Toberoff came in they changed their mind. They OBVIOUSLY never signed anything to settle. So now they co-own it. LOL- tough shit to greedy bastards like yourself.
Love what you do, Nikki. Long time listener…
The creators of Superman have “been compensated over and over again, and this is getting old”?? Who talks like that? We are more than fifty years out from one of the landmark events in entertainment history, the creation not just of this character, not just a genre, but a sci-fi philosophy which defines the world. Who in their right minds thinks this is just about money? Siegel’s wife, and my grandma, can live on a pension just fine, but who do YOU want steering the heart and soul of Superman for the NEXT fifty years? Warner? Seriously?
This is about punitive damages, and no one deserves to get hit more than Warner. Every WB comic book project with any air of success is progressing despite them, not because of them. If the Siegels can’t do better than WB, let my grandma try next. She could use the cash.
I agree with Ella — shelve Supes films for another decade if that’s what it takes to get it right. Even that wasn’t a long enough wait for Star Wars.
It’s a copyright thing. The Siegels are exercising their rights granted to them by Congress in 1976 which says that in certain cases, the copyright holders and/or their heirs can recapture the copyrights even if they legally sold them and regardless of any agreements made since then.
“Can’t Take It”: this was NOT a work for hire deal. Siegel and Shuster had created Superman on their own and taken it to DC, which bought it.
It’s generally believed that the 1976 Cipyright Law provision which allowed creators to recapture rights was inspired by the situation of Siegel and Shuster.
Thus it’s all come full circle.
>>>Honestly, the Shusters and Siegels have been compensated over and over again, and this is getting old. You guys can scream about “creator’s rights” all you want, but when you do work for hire, this is what happens.
It WASN’T work for hire. It was THEIR CREATION.
>>>Shuster and Siegel sold the rights when they first agreed to do the work.
Coercive contracts should be ILLEGAL. They are UNJUST to begin with.
>>>Three separate times over the next few decades, DC gave them additional money–yet it still wasn’t enough. THEY’RE the greedy bastards, not DC.
Oh, right. And DC Comics is a beneficent corporation that feeds stray, homeless unicorns and rehabilitates ailing rainbows.
Tell me, are you one of the creeps from the MPAA or RIAA? Or are you really Dick Morris, still crybabying about Steve Jobs and the success of iTunes?
Thanks, Nikki, for picking this up. Excellent work as usual. Now let’s hope Jack Krugman gets some justice for “Quincy, M.E.,” too!
Good point Michael, it was not “work for hire.”
In fairness to DC Comics, they have been doing a much better job in recent years in paying creators, writers and artists when their work is used more than the first publication.
Unlike Marvel. Dave Cockrum, the artist that brought back the X-Men (with writer Len Wein) died pretty much broke in a VA Hospital while Marvel was raking in the cash over the X-Men movies.
Marvel will get theirs too.
Steve Gerber, rest his soul, showed it was possible with Howard the Duck.
DC and Marvel are going to start bleeding from a thousand legal fees.
Long, long overdue.
So does this mean that they can take Superman elsewhere or simply just never give the rights to any movie studio again? That might be a good thing considering the last good Superman movie was Superman 2 with Christopher Reeve (yeah, I love those three wackos who came to earth).
I don’t understand…how does one still have the rights to something, if they sold it? If Siegel was such a poor businessman, that he sold the rights for $130, it’s nobody’s fault, but his own!
It’s so very hard to hold these guys to our sophisticated business practices. Back then who would dream of a comic book becoming this international phenom? Warner nickel and dimed these guys. THey should have had them sign a contract giving them the copyright while providing fair compensation. Not cool to do otherwise. Creative works all start with a germ of an idea. Sure it morphed and changed over the years but it all started with THEIR idea.
Gavin wrote: how does one still have the rights to something, if they sold it?
What they sold was the copyright, which at the time lasted for 28 years with the option for another 28 years renewal. Thus, DC Comics planned to own the copyright for 56 years, from 1938 to 1994, at which point it would lapse into the public domain. However, in 1976, Congress amended the copyright laws, on one hand extending the 28+28 (largely because of Disney’s lobbying to protect Mickey Mouse), but on the other hand recognized that those who had sold their copyright under the old laws might not have gotten the best deal that they could.
A provision in the new law said that those who sold their copyrights had a window in which they could notify the current holders that the copyright ownership would be terminated and reverted to the original owners after the 56 years was up, even if there were other agreements to the contrary (such as the other lawsuits in which the courts upheld the old contracts). The widow and daughter of Jerry Siegel exercised this right and submitted notice that they were terminating DC’s rights.
It’s not like they can shop him to another company. DC/TimeWarner still owns the trademarks (the name, the logo, the blue suit, the S-shield, etc.). DC/TW/WB can do whatever they want with the character, but as co-owners of the copyright, they must provide a portion of the profits (to be determined) to the other co-owners, the Siegels.
FYI, for those who didn’t know, Disney got Sonny Bono to champion yet another extension to the copyright laws in 1998. This closed a loophole in the 1976 law that said only the heirs could terminate copyright; Superman’s co-creator Joe Shuster died with no heirs, so his estate wasn’t eligible to file for termination until recently. That one comes due in 2013, and given this precedent, it’s likely that unless DC/TW/WB does something before then (like cut a check to be the sole licensor of the copyrights until they expire for good), they’ll lose all copyright.
It’s interesting… when a judge throws out a search warrant in the case, everything the State assembled on the basis of that warrant is voided and inadmissable in court. Back to Step One.
In a Just world, the original contract that S&S were made to sign would be thrown out and all derivations that originated in the first Superman would be voided. In other words, Time Warner/D.C. would have *nothing*.
Be glad I don’t run this world, Suits.
Not yet, anyway.
Oh, and one more thing.
There I was one day visiting the offices of D.C. (then NPP), sitting in front of the estimable Nelson Bridwell. In came some Superman pages that were to be reprinted. He took a blue marker and placed a large X over the “Created by Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster” credit, to indicate that should be deleted.
How cavalier they were!
Pay now, bitches.