On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:59:19 GMT, "windowwasher" <windowwasher@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>Re the Siegels. Why since 1999, William? Did they assert rights reversion
>then and it wasn't honored? Being a nonlawyer it seems unjust to me that
one
>can sell all rights and then call a mulligan after the fact. Didn't
Siegel
>sell all rights in perp. He didn't assign the copyright under contract
did
>he?
Siegel and Shuster sold all rights forever and ever amen. Congress, since
then (1976 to be precise), passed a law that specifically allows heirs in
certain cir***stances to recover copyrights which had been transferred
during the original holder's life. Using that law, the Siegals filed
legal
papers to revert the rights to Superman in 1999. Last week's ruling was
upholding an earlier judgement.
Under the law as I understand it (and AINAL and all that), Siegel couldn't
call a mulligan. His heirs could, however, end the arrangement he had
agreed to. Note that they didn't negate DC's rights to the character for
the last last 60 years, only a ****tion of the rights since they filed to
revert the rights in 1999 (because of a later deal struck between DC and
Shuster, his heirs can't do the same until 2013). Also, the court's
ruling
was only on the rights signed over by S&S for the ideas in the story in
Action Comics #1. It remains to be seen how much claim they have on
anything developed after that. They may have a ****tion of the rights for
Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and certain other characters, but not
have
the rights to, say, Lex Luthor, who didn't come along until Action Comics
#23 (although Siegel and Shuster wrote and drew that story, so they also
created Luthor, just not in Action Comics #1).
--
"Oh Buffy, you really do need to have
every square inch of your ass kicked."
- Willow Rosenberg
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