Jack Kirby co-created countless characters for Marvel, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Avengers, etc. His estate has sent out 45 notices of copyright infringement to such companies as Marvel Entertainment, Disney, Paramount, Sony and others, insisting they intended to own the full copyright for every character by 2014. This could be a major problem for Disney, who recently purchased Marvel.
Under copyright law, the author or his heirs can begin a process to regain copyrights a certain period of years after the original grant. If Mr. Kirby’s four children were to gain the copyright to a co-created character, they might become entitled to a share of profits from films or other properties using it. They might also find themselves able to sell rights to certain characters independently of Marvel, Disney, or the various studios that have licensed the Marvel properties for their hit films.
In July, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that Warner Brothers and its DC Comics unit had not violated rights of the Siegel heirs in handling internal transactions related to Superman, but an earlier ruling had already granted the heirs a return of their share in the copyright. In the late 1990s, Mr. Toberoff represented a television writer, Gilbert Ralston, who sued Warner over the rights to the film “Wild, Wild West.” The suit was ultimately settled.
Copyright issues have become increasingly difficult for Hollywood, as it continues to trade on characters and stories that were created decades ago, but are now subject to deadlines and expiration dates under federal copyright law.
[Editor's Note: It's both interesting and sad to see how litigious the comic book industry is. In order to stay in business and to only spend tens of thousands of dollars defending ourselves rather than the necessary millions (???), by agreement we aren't allowed to discuss the matter's details, but we have been under legal threats and attacks ourselves in the recent past. Who with, you wonder? What about? Well what do you think of the cool fictional photoshop work below? Neat, huh? Yeah, child's college fund and an entire retirement savings worth of "neat". It's quite inspiring illuminating to see super-heroes® in action first-hand.]
An avalanche of movies based on comic books is nearly upon us, with Marvel moving around release dates for several tent-pole flicks in the hopes of maximizing their bottom-line. The movies in question are Captain America, Thor, and The Avengers. Here are the official release dates so you can start setting up lawn chairs in front of the multiplex:
Thor: June 17, 2011
The First Avenger: Captain America: July 22, 2011
The Avengers: May 4, 2012
As an extra bonus, Marvel let loose with the news that Spider-Man 4 will release on May 6, 2011.
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