Portfolio, a new business magazine, has an interesting article in its October issue about the lawsuit that Jerry Siegel's widow and daughter have filed against DC Comics over the rights to Superman.

I've not finished the article yet, but I thought it was worth a link here.

The Siegel family has hired a sharp and controversial Malibu attorney, Marc Toberoff, who specializes in copyright law -- and specifically in reversion of rights to creators exercising "a clause in U.S. copyright law that gives creators or their heirs a five-year window to reclaim rights to their works 56 years after the copyright was issued. Toberoff says this entitles the Siegels to half of all Superman-related profits earned since the copyright termination took effect in 1999 -— a sum he estimates tops $50 million -— as well as any future profits."

Toberoff has won a number of these suits, and he has beaten Time Warner (DC's owner) before.

Given that DC already has lost the rights to Superboy to the Siegel family, I wonder if DC's lawyers might not recommend a very generous settlement sometime soon.

This is what happens sometimes when you screw people at the beginning. DC made a lot of money off Siegel and Joe Shuster. Too bad it didn't treat them with honesty and respect.


http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/culture-inc/arts/2007/09/17/Time-Warner-Superman-Suit

Who wants to bet me Toberoff ends up making more off Superman than the guys who made him up? What the hell was I thinking, going to life drawing classes and reading all those comicbooks? If I really wanted to get in the comics game, I shoulda gone to law school...

The way it works is this: Toberoff gets a third of the ownership rights if they revert to his client, the creator (or the creator's heirs). That's a lot, but it's standard for a contingency fee, when a lawyer agrees to take your case for free ... unless you win. If you win, thanks to his hard work, he gets one-third. If you lose, he gets nothing.

Sounds fair to me.

But yeah, this dude could end up owning one-third of Superman -- and then leasing Superman back to DC Comics for future comics, movies, etc.

Because that's how he works. He's not trying to prevent future Superman projects, but he wants the company to have to pay to use Superman. I'm sure DC would rather not -- it would be bizarre in the extreme for a comics publisher to have to pay to use its flagship character -- but if the choice is paying Mrs. Siegel and her lawyer or walking away from Superman, well, we can guess how that would go down. Losing Superboy was a pinch. Losing Superman would be pretty much the end of DC.

I wonder who is protected by that "56 years after the copyright" was issued thing? Arbitrary numbers like that ususally get slipped in to benefit someone.

Mike

Absolutely. I've no doubt a member of Congress slipped the 56-year rule into law specifically for a particular campaign donor with a 56-year-old copyright at stake. When you see that sort of thing -- a tax break for "parties living at 1300 Wildwood Court in Cleveland, Ohio," etc., etc. -- the fix is in.

In this instance, the lawyer is smart enough to drive other people's cases through the loophole when he can.

I wonder if there was something DC could have done to have prevented this, y'know in the past?

Like maybe instead of tossing the creators out on their asses when they asked for a more equitable piece of the pie. Yeah, somewhere around that time.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong -- and they will, I'm sure -- but Bob Kane had an uncle who was a smart entertainment lawyer. So when Kane created Batman for DC, he had a nice contract arranged that provided for him. That's how business should be done. To the best of my knowledge -- I cringe, awaiting the correction here -- Batman's ownership has never been the subject of much legal dispute with the Kane family.

With Superman, DC screwed these two guys for peanuts, eventually forced them off their own creation, stopped returning their calls and had to be shamed into providing them with a modest pension in the late 1970s, while the Superman movie was in the works. The legal back-and-forth that resulted from all this bad blood continues to haunt the men's families and DC to this day.

First rung:
Marc Toberoff

Post of the day.

One of the reasons Bob Kane got a better deal is because he lied about his age. When he signed the contracts he claimed he was 18 but later said he was actually 17 at the time and thus the original contract was non-binding. When he renegotiated with DC he demanded that he be given sole credit for the character, denying his co-creator any credit.