Superman lawsuit update

Update: news from CBR and Newsarama (here and here), both written by lawyers who know how to interpret all this legalese.

I haven't posted an update to the Superboy/Superman lawsuit lately, but something new came out on Wednesday.

The BEAT wrote

The Siegel family — including Joanne Siegel and Laura Sigel Larson — were granted half the copyright to Superman in 1999, and the present case involved their share of the revenue from such Superman appearances as SMALLVILLE. The Siegels argued that a “sweetheart deal” from Warner Bros. led to lower than market value licensing fees for the use of Superman.

Jeff Trexler at Newsarama posted that:

Last year a federal court awarded the Siegel heirs half of the copyright in the Superman material in Action Comics #1. Remaining to be decided, however, was how much that copyright interest was worth.

Today the court released its ruling on the first issue related to this question: namely

“whether the license fees paid” by Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. (“Warner Bros”) to its corporate sibling, DC Comics, for the audiovisual rights to the Superman copyright pursuant to various licensing agreements entered into during the 1999 to 2002 period “represents the fair market value therefor, or whether the license for the works between the related entities was a ‘sweetheart deal.’”

These licensing agreements included the TV series "Smallville", the movie "Superman Returns", and animated shows such as "Justice League" and "Legion of Super Heroes".

CBR has more here, and The BEAT has more as well.

There's still a big part of the Superman lawsuit still remaining (but hopefully in the near future), and the Superboy copyright lawsuit is supposed to follow that one.

Ummm, hello... the return of Superboy?

They're talking about the new Superman origin story at Newsarama. What interests me is that not only are they going to restore Clark Kent's history as Superboy - with all that means from Legion continuity - but also just the fact that they're restoring Clark Kent as Superboy to begin with.

The heirs of Jerry Siegel currently have a lawsuit pending with Time Warner and DC Comics over the rights to the Superboy character. For a while we didn't see any Superboy at all: Conner Kent was killed (for how long, remains to be seen), they referred to the Earth-Prime Superboy as "Superman Prime", and they didn't publish any comics with Superboy. But then they came out with some reprint volumes (Showcase, 1050 Years, etc.) with Superboy on the cover, and Superman Prime is being called Superboy Prime again. Now they're restoring the Superboy history wiped out in the Crisis and Byrne revamp, and they are blatantly calling him Superboy (as opposed to "Young Superman").

Now, the lawsuit involving Superboy has not been settled, and in fact has been scheduled for sometime after the resolution of the Action Comics suit in which the Siegels are seeking to recapture their rights to Superman, in a method authorized by Congress.

Click on the "Superboy lawsuit" tab at the top for all the other posts here on that topic, and read Jeff Trexler's posts at Newsarama for all of the details. When last we heard (Wizard World Chicago back in June), Dan DiDio hinted that they were somehow allowed to use Superboy again, but no details on that have emerged (and Jeff is the one doing all the legal journalistic work on this case).

Geoff Johns, on Smallville and Superman: Secret Origin

On MTV's Splash Page, their blog for comics and movies, Geoff Johns talks about the Legion on Smallville (I love all of the buzz this episode is getting!).

“The concept of the Legion throws a wrench in Clark’s life,” Johns said. “They’ve already built up to a huge climax with Chloe and Doomsday, and then the Legion comes in and completely complicates everything.”

Johns pitched the show on introducing the time-traveling Legionnaires — Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy — by explaining that they would be relevant to Clark Kent’s life at this point in time (unlike some other characters who’d been introduced on the show although he wasn’t supposed to meet them until later — can you say Green Arrow?). And when the time came to talk villains, Johns brought in a bunch of his comic books to show them how the Persuader would translate in a cameo appearance.

...To translate the Legionnaires, Johns said there was some debate over whether they would wear spandex, but found middle ground in uniforms that give nods to their comic book appearances. “So you got Saturn Girl in red and white with Saturn on her chest,” he expained. “We had production meetings to talk through all the details. Do they have rings? What do they look like?”

Following the episode won’t require knowing Legion history, Johns promised. “If you’re not a Legion fan, it’s a lot of ‘Do you make your own destiny? Is it written in stone? Do your heroes live up to your expectatons?’ There’s a lot there for you. But if you’re a fan, we worked our asses off to be as faithful to it as possible. There’s so much mythology in this episode, I think the fans will be blown away.”

Meanwhile, he also talked to Newsarama about the upcoming Superman: Secret Origin. They've got a look at some of the covers which are linked together; the Legion stars on the second cover.

Notice that they are reintroducing teenage Clark Kent as Superboy, which is at the heart of one of the Siegels/DC lawsuits.

GJ: ...To me, origin stories - particularly "Secret Origin" stories in the DC Comics universe - are vital to the introduction of characters and mythology to the larger audience, and I think they can be to the long time audience as well. We haven't seen a modern day retelling of Clark's first adventure as Superboy with the Legion of Super-Heroes, or the day Superman met Jimmy Olsen or the origins of Superman's long time enemies like the Parasite and Metallo. More importantly, Clark Kent himself will be explored in his earlier years in a way I don't think he's ever been explored before. And freaking Gary Frank, one of the greatest Superman artists in history already, is illustrating it. Every cover, every panel, ever line.

For long time readers, with the inclusion of the Legion of Super-Heroes back in Superman's history, General Zod introduced and all the other changes made post-Infinite Crisis nearly 3-years ago, they've been requesting a definitive secret origin. Man of Steel was brilliant and Birthright was a beautiful book, but Superman: Secret Origin will be what lines right up for the modern day monthly books. It will feature new looks at the origin of not only Superman, but some of his greatest allies, enemies and supporting cast and it will tie into everything Gary and I have done so far on Action Comics as well as setting the stage for the future.

NRAMA: As readers of Gary and your work on Action know, you’ve been adjusting things on Krypton in New Krypton as well as touching upon Clark's early years, so what's the scope of this story, time-wise?

GJ: It goes from Clark's teenage years, through his first adventure with the Legion of Super-Heroes and into his arrival and introduction to Metropolis as Superman. We've included the first three covers with the interview and you can see a pretty big part of Clark Kent's history is being reintroduced as well - namely, Superboy. But with a bit of a twist.

NRAMA: Can you tell us any characters or beats that you're going to play up more than they've been mentioned previously? Any that you're going to de-emphasize?

GJ: You'll see Ma and Pa Kent, Lana Lang, Pete Ross, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Mordru, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, the Parasite, Metallo, Lex Luthor and others...

...And after Superman: Secret Origin, Gary and I already know what comes next. It'll be a monthly.

Would it be too much of a coincidence for Johns and Frank to be leaving Action Comics just when the monthly Adventure Comics (starring the Legion) starts up?

Superboy/Superman "law crack" and more

First, Paul Levitz participates in a "How I Got Here" series in the Wall Street Journal, interviewed in San Diego. Totally not relevant to the rest of this entry, just thought I'd put it here rather than a whole post by itself.

Second, an update on the Superboy and Superman lawsuit, which you'll remember are being tried sort-of together by the same judge. Jeff Trexler at Uncivil Society has the latest set of briefs (which came out while I was at San Diego) which he calls "law crack".

The latest briefs from both sides are available, with the Siegels and DC taking their best shot at legal questions arising from the Siegels' copyright interest in the Superman material in Action Comics 1.

Five new documents are now available in pdf format, which contain insight and information on both the Superman and Superboy lawsuits:

• The Plaintiffs' Memorandum of Points and Authorities on Pre-Trial Issues, 80 pages saying how they have recaptured copyright of some part of Superman, why Warner Bros. is wrong, and how they should pay the Siegels
  
• The Defendants' Brief on Additional Issues, 80 pages saying why Warner Bros. has not lost copyright of Superman and should not have to pay the Siegels anything
  
• The Declaration in Support of Defendants' Brief on Additional Issues, multiple exhibits including the 1939 agreements beween Siegel, Shuster, and DC in which S&S confirm that "Detective Comics Inc. are the sole and exclusive owners of the comic strip entitled SUPERMAN"; a letter from DC saying that the artwork is slipping in quality despite having 43 pages a month to churn out; and copies of JLA #2, Justice #11, and JLA Classified #27.
  
• The Declaration in Support of Plaintiffs' Pre-Trial Briefing, multiple exhibits including expert witness statements by Jim Steranko and Mark Evanier; Evanier's rebuttal to the defendants' expert witness; excerpts from Evanier's deposition; the 1947 agreement between DC and Siegel/Shuster; and excerpts from Jerry Siegel's unpublished autobiography (as provided by Mark Waid).
  
• The Declaration in Support of Defendants' Brief on Additional Issues, a brief by Paul Levitz explaining how WB/DC licenses and merchandises Superman, including DVD releases. Levitz's testimony, by the way, was given on July 21, just a couple days before San Diego.
  

The Legion shows up a few times here and there, in particular in Evanier's statements.

Of the documents as presented, I have only read the declarations so far, and not the two 80-page giant briefs. I've made it this far reading all of the documents Jeff has found, so I'll get to those sooner or later. But while Mark Evanier writes some excellent briefs, making me think about some points that I hadn't thought of before regarding what was original (and thus copyrightable), I still have this gut feeling - which is why it's good I'm not a lawyer - that while the Siegels will win at least a portion of the Superman case, I can't help but think that for all Siegel and Shuster did that's original with Superboy, it's still "Superman as a boy" and thus derivative, meaning Superboy was never the Siegels' to reclaim.

There's another court date set for August 11, next Monday. We'll see what happens then.

Superboy lawsuit: has a settlement been reached? (updated)

Update 9pm Sunday night: Jeff Trexler, who knows way more about this law stuff than I do, analyzes the news (see below).

---

Thanks to Sam for pointing out this nugget that I missed earlier in the discussion of the DC Nation panel at Wizard World Chicago this weekend, as reported by Newsarama:

Didio also paused to point out the special nature of Legion of Three Worlds. “We’ve got Geoff, we’ve got Geroge [sic], we’ve got SuperBOY Prime (yes, we can say that again).”

You may have noticed that since the Siegels filed their lawsuit claiming copyright to Superboy (the young Clark Kent that lived in Smallville) - coincidentally the same week that Superboy (Kon-El) died in "Infinite Crisis" - DC has not used any character named Superboy, and they've been cautious not to even use the name in convention panels.

That's not simply because, as some think, the Siegels filed suit for the Superboy rights. Kon-El, for example, has nothing whatsoever to do with the suit, and DC (which owns the trademark to the name "Superboy") is free to use the name however and whenever they want. They have chosen not to use it, I presume, out of respect and so as to not antagonize anyone further. (They did, however, change "Superboy" to "young Superman" on the Legion cartoon because of this.) The results of the last lawsuit, currently under appeal, was that the judge overturned a previous ruling that said the Siegels won Superboy and ordered each side to present more evidence showing that there were copyrightable elements in the original Superboy story that were not derivative of Superman (whose copyright DC owned outright at that point).

In the most recent court ruling, in which the Siegels were awarded the copyright to the Superman material in Action Comics #1 back in April, the judge, who is the same for both the Superman and Superboy lawsuits, ordered that:

–The parties are to spend the next 60 days negotiating a settlement.
–After the 60 days is up, the parties are to file a joint report on what happened.
–If they don’t settle, the trial in the Superman case is scheduled to begin on November 4, 2008.
–The court is setting aside ruling on the remaining issues in the Superboy case, along with setting the Superboy trial dates, until after the Superman trial is over.
(summary via Blog@Newsarama)

The 60 days were up in early June. The fact that DiDio says that they can say "Superboy" again suggests an outcome favorable to both parties.

More here (and elsewhere, I'm sure) as it develops. Maybe big news on a panel at San Diego next month?

Update 9pm Sunday night: Jeff Trexler at Newsarama has more. The 60-day deadline was pushed back to the end of June, but the parties haven't reached a settlement yet despite 23 hours of negotiations over four days.

In light of this report, DiDio’s reference to Superboy becomes even more interesting. It could be a sign that the parties, despite not reaching a complete settlement in time for the required report, have at least reached a shared decision regarding Superboy and are optimistic that the resolution of the remaining issues is in sight, if not already accomplished.

Still, for one party to reveal an agreement in principle before the settlement is finalized is not standard practice, particularly given the confidentiality agreement that parties often sign before a mediation begins. DiDio’s statement could be a slip — but it also could be a sign of something else.

Superman and Superboy lawsuit update

Jeff Trexler (of uncivilsociety.org) posted this weekend at Blog@Newsarama about a new ruling in the Superman case, fallout from the Action Comics #1 case.

The judge in the Siegel case has issued a new order pertaining to both the Superboy and Superman lawsuits.

The order in a nutshell:

–The parties are to spend the next 60 days negotiating a settlement.
–After the 60 days is up, the parties are to file a joint report on what happened.
–If they don’t settle, the trial in the Superman case is scheduled to begin on November 4, 2008.
–The court is setting aside ruling on the remaining issues in the Superboy case, along with setting the Superboy trial dates, until after the Superman trial is over.

Of course, being the Newsarama message boards, the comments quickly descend to the typical "The Siegels are greedy" stuff we've seen recently.

Go to the page to read more, and read the opinion here.

Superboy lawsuit update (edit #3)

Via Jeff Trexler:

This is the big one. The judge has issued a ruling in the case regarding the Siegel family's rights in Superman. It doesn't resolve all the issues--for example, this does not address the Superboy issue, which is a separate case. However, it does award the heirs copyright in the Superman material in Action Comics number 1 (the judge uses the term "Vol. 1", but that's only a reference to the first issue.).

See Trexler's page for a copy of the 71-page ruling.

Technically nothing has been resolved yet in the Siegels vs DC/Time Warner case regarding copyrights to Superboy, but the judge ruled on the Superman case: exercising their rights granted to them (and all copyright holders and their heirs) by Congress in 1976, the Siegels recaptured a share of the copyright to the Superman material in "Action Comics" #1. The Superboy case is another case altogether, whether the character is derivative of Superman (in which case DC gets the copyrights) or whether he is a separate character created by Siegel and Shuster not created as work for hire (in which case the Siegels get the copyrights).

See this New York Times article for a fairly easy to read synopsis:

A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character. The ruling left intact Time Warner’s international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit.

Time Warner lawyers declined to discuss the decision, a spokesman said. A similar ruling in 2006 allowed the Siegels to recapture their rights in the Superboy character, without determining whether Superboy was, in fact, the basis for Warner Brothers’s “Smallville” television series. The decision was later challenged in a case that has yet to be resolved, said Mr. Toberoff, who represented the family in that action.

Trexler points to a blog by William Patry, whose copyright treatise is referenced in the ruling, who now happens to be the Senior Copyright Counsel to Google, Inc.

I will say it is a brilliant opinion must have taken an extraordinary amount of time. It is very readable (and with great pictures!), which is very high praise given the extreme complexity of the facts and the legal issues at stake, If there was a Pulitzer Prize for judicial opinions, Judge Larson would win (with supporting awards for his hard-working clerks.).

Read the Times article and the two blog entries first, then read Blog@Newsarama's coverage. Save that one for last, so you can read the comments from those accusing the Siegels of being greedy.

This is far from the end of the line. Expect a lot of litigation on the Superman issue, and we haven't even gotten to the Superboy issue yet.

Update #1: Jeff Trexler has a FAQ up for those of you who, like me, can say "IANAL" (I am not a lawyer) but want to understand what's going on.

Additionally, see coverage at Journalista ("Sometimes, the good guys do in fact win"), the LA Times, Comics 212, Comic Book Resources, Wired, and soon to be lots more.

Update #2: Tom Bondurant of Newsarama (who is a lawyer) provides his opinion on what it all means. Most amusing are the hair-pulling, clothes-rending, plaintive cries of "woe is me, what will I do in a world without Superman?".

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily gets to put her anti-studio spin on the ruling.

Superboy lawsuit update, Dec. 2007 edition (updated)

Time for another update on the Superboy lawsuit. Last time, back in September, we found out (via Trexfiles) that the Superman lawsuit - argued by the heirs of Jerry Siegel that the rights to Superman should revert to them - was going to be sent to trial in late January, with the Superboy lawsuit - who owns Superboy? - following in the same court shortly thereafter.

The Trexfiles has a new update with copies of a couple of the court documents. Due to a number of factors (which you can read about here, but it's eye-glazing-over stuff about financial record keeping and how the Siegels haven't been given full access to DC's books), the Superman trial (Case No. CV 04-8400) is apparently set to begin May 15, 2008 with the Superboy trial (Case No. CV 04-8776) following.

I'm sure there are some lawyers out there - what happens at each of these events?

Jury Instructions: March 31, 2008
Objections to Jury Instructions: April 7, 2008
Hearing on Motions in Limine: April 14, 2008, at 1:30 p.m.
Final Pre-Trial Conference: April 28, 2008, at 11:00 a.m.
Trial Briefs: May 5, 2008
Trial of Case No. CV 04-8400: May 13, 2008, at 9:30 a.m.
Trial of Case No. CV 04-8776: Thereafter, as set by Court

One of the documents on the Trexfiles page contains financial information and requests for it. The Legion cartoon is mentioned by name several times, in passing as one of several TV shows to feature Superman or Superboy whose finances are being requested (see pages 43, 77, 91, 120, 127, 136, 146, 194, and 207).

Click on the "Superboy lawsuit" tab at the top of this page for previous installments on the lawsuits, in particular the most recent one with the Newsarama links if you're interested in the details behind both lawsuits, and the August one with a discussion of the previous legal documents.

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Update 8:45pm: There's a lot of discussion in the comments section at Blog@Newsarama. I'm still surprised that people are condemning the Siegels for being greedy, trying to take what isn't theirs. It's just the opposite - Congress gave them the right to reclaim the copyright (but NOT the trademark, which DC owns) when they changed the copyright laws, in order to make up for past injustices to all copyright owners. An astute comment from Thomas Strand:

The Federal law of this country allows them and has granted them the right to return the copyrights to the rightful owners during a specific window in time, because any and all contract that were signed back during the time Superman was…. would have already become public domain.

DC should not even have a Superman copyright, because the contract they originally signed only allowed a one time extension.

The family’s are simply filing the paper work to get the copyrights back, since the contracts that were originally signed have a built in, Federally mandated time limit.

This is not a ‘fight’, this is basically the same thing as you filing paperwork for money the IRS forgot to give you last year.

The only issue here, is this is the first time those parts of the ‘revised’ copyright code have been tested in court, and from the judgments handed out during these cases, you can expect US copyright law to be changed forever.

Something else to think about... when the Legion cartoon was announced, it was supposed to be Superboy and the Legion. When the Superboy lawsuit came out in 2006, they changed it to be "the young Superman". But ironically, that put it under the Superman family of TV shows, so now the financial statements from the show are a part of the Superman lawsuit.

Superboy lawsuit update, Sept. edition

Jeff Trexler at Trexfiles has the latest update on the Superboy lawsuit. The last time we were here, the judge had overturned a 2006 ruling that said the Siegels had recaptured the rights to Superboy. He wanted more information from each side (the Siegels and DC/Warners) that showed whether the original Superboy pitch from the early 1940s was or was not derivative (under the law) of Superman, which would determine whether or not there were any copyrightable elements in the original pitch - and thus whether there were any copyrights to recapture to begin with.

It happens that the judge in the Superboy case is also the judge in a separate case the Siegels have against DC/Warners regarding the rights to Superman himself. In a nutshell, changes to copyright laws over the years have allowed the original copyright owners (Siegel and Shuster) to regain the copyrights in certain cases (see this Newsarama series of articles on the Superman matter). That's an interesting case in itself, and hinges on a lot of the same copyright law, but outside the scope of the Legion Omnicom.

Anyway, the judge heard from both sides in both cases on Sept. 17 about various legal items, and ordered that (among other things) the trial date for the Superman lawsuit will start on January 28, 2008, and the date for the Superboy suit will be some time after that. So barring any pre-trial settlements, I don't expect to have anything new for a while.

Baltimore Comic Con '07, day 1

As mentioned earlier, this weekend is the Baltimore Comic Con. In addition to the usual DC Nation and DC Universe panels, on Sunday there's a Jim Shooter spotlight panel in which he will no doubt start to explain what's coming up on the Legion. In the meantime, here's the Saturday news:

12:00-1:45 DC Nation
Come one, come all -- rise up and join the growing DC NATION!! Meet Dan DiDio, Senior VP-Executive Editor DCU, as he invites you to be part of the revolution! Learn what it’s like to live in a multi-verse guarded by Monitors, and discover the secret of the cosmic chess game as the DCU counts down to a Final Crisis!

From Newsarama:

• Asked if there was a chance to see the post Zero Hour Legion of Super-Heroes, DiDio reiterated that Jim Shooter would be joining the series with issue #37, and that there are many plans coming for the Legion’s anniversary next year.
  
  
• Busiek confirmed that Carlos Pacheco will be leaving Superman with issue #668, the finale of the “Camelot Falls” storyline. The writer added that the writers are currently framing plans for 2008, the 70th anniversary of the character. Coming up is “The Third Kryptonian,” followed by the debut of the new Insect Queen, and a major “earth(s) shaking” crossover between Superman and Action Comics.
  
  
• The story elements from “The Lightning Saga” which seem to have been left hanging will be touched upon as part of the Legion’s anniversary next year.
  
  
• Any progress on the Superboy lawsuit that can be discussed? Wayne: “No comment.”
  
  
• Are there more Legion, Flash or Justice League Archives coming? Wayne said that when you get up to the issues that can be affordably bought by collectors the demand for the Archive Editions goes down. It’s something that they’re working on.

Via Comic Book Resources (not including duplicate info):

• The Karate Kid story [in Countdown] got the faintest reaction from the crowd. An audience member explained that the story was too ambiguous and far-reaching.
  
  
• Will readers find out who got sent to the Legion's future in Brad Meltzer's "Lightning Saga" arc of "Justice League of America?" Look for next year's 50th anniversary for more answers.

Via Mike Rhode's Flickr photostream, here's what Shooter looks like these days.

Superboy's super-lawsuit: update

Well just a couple weeks after my non-update on the Superboy lawsuit, Scott from LegionWorld pointed me to this entry at Trexfiles (see also discussion at THE BEAT, Newsarama, Howling Curmudgeons, and soon to be more places).

The bottom line: DC successfully appealed the 2006 ruling, which said that the Siegels had successfully regained the rights to Superboy. The judge ruled that the 2006 case did not adequately interpret what a 1948 court said (and the 1948 case left some stuff out), and he needs to see more supporting documentation from both sides as to whether Superboy as published in "More Fun Comics" #101 was derivative of Superman. What it's going to boil down to is this: was there anything copyrightable in Siegel's original plans for Superboy, or was it basically derivative of Superman? They've got 30 days from July 27 to present their case, making the due date August 26.

Here's the long-winded explanation. I don't think that it's difficult to follow, and the few legalese terms I didn't recognize I was able to look up easily. Given that I am not a lawyer, here's how I read the court document (which was written July 27, 2007).

First, a timeline of the litigation is important while reading the document. Here, "DC" is used to refer to "Detective Comics" and its successors "National Comics", "Independent News", "National Periodical Publications", and "DC Comics" just because it all gets too confusing.

• Siegel and Shuster co-created Superman independently of DC and sold the rights to DC in 1938 for $130.
  
• In 1938 and again in 1940, Siegel pitched "Superboy" to DC, which had the right of first refusal. DC passed.
  
• In 1944, DC published the first appearance of Superboy in "More Fun" #101.
  
• In 1947, Siegel and Shuster sued DC, claiming that, among other things, (a) they were being cheated out of Superman profits, and (b) Superboy did not belong to DC since they passed on the character earlier.
  
• Later in 1947, the court ruled that (a) Siegel and Shuster had sold all their rights to Superman and thus DC did not owe them anything, (b) Superboy was a work distinct from Superman and that DC should pay them.
  
• In 1948, a court referee issued a 36-page Findings of Fact document detailing the Superboy case, which concluded that "Plaintiff Siegel is the originator and sole owner of the comic strip feature SUPERBOY", DC cannot publish any Superboy material without Siegel's consent, and Siegel is free to shop Superboy to any publisher.
  
• Later in 1948, while the matter was on appeal, the parties settled, with DC paying Siegel and Shuster $94,000 and the men turning over all rights to Superman and Superboy to DC, and the Findings of Fact document vacated.
  
• In 1969, Siegel and Shuster again sued DC. Under the copyright terms in effect at the time of creation, the copyright to Superman lasted 28 years, or somewhere around 1966. The two claimed that the copyright that they sold to DC had run out, but DC successfully claimed that as the copyright holders of record it was allowed to renew the copyright for another 28 years.
  
• In 1976, Congress changed the copyright laws again, adding another 19 year extension, but also allowed authors to terminate their rights that they may have sold.
  
• In 2002, the heirs of Siegel (now deceased) filed again for Superboy's copyright termination when it expired in 2004 (1948 + 28 = 1976, + 28 = 2004, or something like that).
  
• In 2006, a judge ruled that the Siegels had successfully recaptured the rights to Superboy as a result of the original 1948 case. He left for a future trial whether or not DC (and parent Time Warner) had infringed on their rights since 2004 with things like the "Smallville" TV series. DC appealed.
  
• In 2007, the appeal was released.
  

Well, the main question is "which takes precedence here, the original 1948 ruling which said that Superboy is separate from Superman and thus Siegel owns him, or the refereed settlement agreement later in which Siegel and Shuster sold any rights back to DC and the original ruling was vacated?"

After several pages of discussion of judicial estoppel (DC's 2006 case, which used the fact that the 1948 ruling was vacated, is opposite their 1976 case, which used the fact that the 1948 ruling was upheld. The judge ruled that the 1976 case citation was not relevant to the verdict, so this was not an issue.

Then the 2007 judge ruled on "collateral estoppel", which basically means that once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, you can't try that issue again. He said that based on New York State Law, the 1948 trial shouldn't be overturned based on 1976 laws since the trial couldn't take into account future laws. (I think that's what it says on page 28).

However, though copyright is a federal issue, not a state issue, state courts may litigate federal issues. Plus, the 1948 case was involved state claims of misappropriation of property, while the 2006 case is about federal copyrights. A finding of fact is not the same as an application of law to fact. (page 34) An earlier state court judgment does not preclude litigation in federal court. And basically, the 2006 judge was wrong when he equated the two. (page 37)

Next, the judge looks at whether Superboy was "work for hire", part of "joint authorship", "published", and was a "derivative work". He ruled that Superboy was not created as work for hire (page 53); sidesteps for the moment whether or not it was joint authorship (page 62); says that while the idea for Superboy was published in "More Fun" 101, the 1948 referee never said whether the material from Siegel's original script was published, and the court is in no position to do so (page 65); and cannot determine whether it was derivative without further information (page 72).

So... if you're still with me after all this, the judge ruled that both the Siegels and DC must submit within 30 days (by August 26) information which will help decide the case - was there anything copyrightable in Siegel's original plans for Superboy, or was it basically derivative of Superman? That's the only thing that the judge wants to hear about, so it's the critical issue. If the Siegels win, then the judge rules that DC did violate the copyright. If DC wins, then the judge rules that Superboy is derivative of Superman regardless of anything else.

Your homework: read the following case law, referenced in the document.

• 1940: DC vs Bruns Publications, the first one in which a character was ruled a ripoff of Superman
  
• 1952: DC vs Fawcett, over whether Captain Marvel was a ripoff of Superman
  
• 1983: Warner Bros. vs. ABC television, in which "Greatest American Hero" is ruled not derivative of Superman
  
• 1999: Sapon vs. DC Comics, in which original vs derivative works of Batman are argued
  
• 2002: Joe Simon vs Marvel, over co-ownership of Captain America
  
• 2004: Gaiman vs. McFarlane
  

Superboy's Super-Lawsuit: a Non-Update

I keep getting hits to my post from last year on the Superboy lawsuit, most recently from this CBR forum discussion entitled Is "S****b*y" a forbidden word at DC? from the recent return of Superboy-Prime in the Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps story, so I figured I'd write a non-update (since there has been little legal movement made public). The two big questions seem to be "How can Superboy and Superman be two different characters?" and "Why doesn't DC just pay the Siegels?". As with anything dealing with lawyers, it's complicated. It's also part of a much bigger legal battle involving Superman himself, but that's not relevant to this discussion here.

And I am not a lawyer, so this is my interpretation. (For a much more detailed description, read this series of Newarama articles.)

Way back when, Siegel and Shuster created Superman. In the origin story, there's a panel or two of baby Clark and then later teenage Clark at his parents graves. In an attempt to create a new series, Siegel proposed a concept called Superboy, who was Superman as a boy. DC (then National) passed on the concept but used it later without compensation. Siegel, naturally, was upset and sued. In 1947, a court ruled that Superboy was from a legal standpoint a different character than Superman - Superboy was a young Clark Kent in Smallville, while Superman was an adult in Metropolis with a different supporting cast. Yes, it sounds stupid to us, but that was the ruling then and it's the ruling that has shaped the case for the last 60 years.

Not being stupid, Siegel realized he could make more off of Superboy by selling the rights to DC than he could by selling it to someone else. DC bought the rights in 1948, which under copyright law lasted 28 years (to 1976). Congress later extended copyright time another 28 years (in this case, until 2004), at which point those who sold their copyrights decades earlier simply had to notify the rights holder that they would be taking back their copyright when the 56 years expired. Thus, under US copyright law, the Siegels had to take him back or else forfeit the rights to DC.

That's what the Siegels did, they told DC that when the time was up, they wanted Superboy back (my guess is to re-license it back). By then, DC was a cog in the great Time Warner empire, where comics characters make far more in licensing than they do in comics. Things like the Superman movie, which stars an adult Kal-el/Clark Kent in Metropolis, and the TV show "Smallville", which stars a young Kal-el/Clark Kent in Smallville. So the Siegels and Time Warner's lawyers went to court to fight over Superboy. Time Warner argued, basically, "how can they be different characters when one is just the grownup version of the other, and we own the grownup one?". The judge said "hold on, I've got this 1947 court case that said they were different, and not only that, but DC later bought the rights which indicated that they agreed with the original ruling that Superboy was owned by Siegel" and awarded Superboy to the Siegels. DC/Time Warner disagreed (if they lost the case, they'd have to pay out megabucks for Smallville episodes aired after the agreement ran out in 2004) and the case is on appeal. The judge also said that if it was up to him, he would rule that the Smallville show is a violation, but he noted that the rights to Smallville were not up for litigation in that particular case and that his statement had no legal bearing.

This all happened, apparently coincidentally, right around the climax of Infinite Crisis in which Kon-el died, so naturally the thought was that he was killed off because DC couldn't do a Superboy. Setting aside the lead time required to write, draw, and publish a comic, the only thing that DC "lost" was the right to have a character named Superboy who was a young Clark Kent in Smallville. In theory, Kon-el would probably have been safe since his background was different. Superboy of Earth-Prime is another story, though, since he really is a young Clark Kent. But if they just call him something else (like "Prime", for example) that's apparently enough to work around it. Superboy from the Legion's TV show was too close for comfort, so they worked around it by calling him "a young Superman". I have no idea about things like the recent Legion Showcase volume with Superboy on the cover, whether those reprints are covered under the same agreements as new material.

So that brings up the other frequently asked question, why doesn't DC just pay off the Siegels? Well, part of it is that the rights are not owned by DC Comics, it's that they're owned by Time Warner - which is a huge corporation. And corporations just hate to pay money to people who can set precedents and inspire others to file suit.

And that's the story. The Siegels requested Superboy back because under US law they are legally entitled to, and Time Warner won't pay them to use him. In April 2007, according to Time Warner's quarterly report, "the Company filed motions for partial summary judgment on various issues, including the unavailability of accounting for pre-termination and foreign works" regarding the Siegel lawsuit, as well as "the Company filed a motion for summary judgment on non-infringement of the Company's Smallville television series." These motions have not been ruled on yet, to my knowledge.

For more background read this Feb. 2005 article from Inside Counsel about DC's lawyer (prior to the ruling), April 2006 article from Variety, this very thorough April 2006 article from Newsarama (which contains links to the summaries of the actual legal documents), and the Time Warner Form 10-K from May 2006 (search for "Superboy").

Animated LSH news 34: Superboy's out?

According to a poster at LegionWorld, the team working on the animated series has gone back and reworked the show to remove Superboy due to the ramifications of the Siegel Superboy suit.

I met and talked to someone who works in connection to the show yesterday, and have some good news and bad news:

Firstly, the art style of the show is supposedly closer to the Bruce Timm DCAU style than the promo art we've seen so far. That's neither good nor bad for me, because I like both...but I'm sure some people will be happy.

The bad news is that due to losing the lawsuit with the Seigel and Schuster heirs, DC can't use the name 'Superboy' in the show. (Note: this is inaccurate, but was corrected below)

At all.

So all the episodes completed up to this point have had to be re-dubbed, calling the character 'Superman.' Apparantly, there is even some discussion as to whether the character now is even Superman as a boy...or if he will be an adult Superman who has been de-aged somehow. Yeesh, I hope that doesn't happen.

The good news is that we should be seeing the series around September. Also, there is a full toy line in the works from Mattel...can't wait for that.

He wrote in another post that he apparently misunderstood the bit about the lawsuit, correcting himself and adding more:

My impression was that they needed to move forward in order to get the show out on time, so who knows... maybe the name change is more of a 'better safe than sorry' thing, rather than them actually losing yet. (And yeah, you're right about it only being the Siegel heirs)

My source seemed reliable to me...he said that when it came up they were going to have to re-dub all references to 'Superboy', he had suggested they change it to 'Kal-El', which I think would have made a great middle ground...but I guess they felt it would not have the same level of public recognition.

Stay tooned for more.

Superboy's Super-Lawsuit

Well the news hit the blogosphere in a trickle and it's now a flood. Lots of people at sites all over the web are talking about the Superboy lawsuit, and as Tom Spurgeon said, "A story like this is newswire crack".

Note: some of these links may contain spoilers to Infinite Crisis 6, so proceed at your own risk.

First, read the Variety article that "broke" the news, or at least, started this week's worldwide interest.

In a nutshell, a judge upheld a ruling that said the heirs of Jerry Siegel own the rights to Superboy (young Clark Kent in the super-suit). Siegel won the rights back in a 1947 trial and sold the rights to National (DC) in 1948. According to then-current copyright law, the rights were to revert 28 years later (1976), but in 1976 Congress updated the laws for another 28 years (which would be 2004) and gave the rights holders the opportunity to get them back at the end of the 56 years. That's what the Siegels did in 2004, and the judge ruled that since DC bought the rights in 1948, that very fact acknowledged that the Superboy rights belonged to the Siegels. It's likely that the Siegels and DC/Time Warner will come to some agreement at some point, but who knows when and what the details might be. Until then, the appearance of Superboy for the forseeable future is unclear.

So what about Superboy and the Legion, in the comics and on TV? Warner Brothers animation is proceeding with the animated series, which at this point still includes Superboy. Who knows if he'll stay in or be written out. The fact that the series is continuing in production suggests that no one is willing to pull the plug on it before it airs.

• Bill at the Trusty Plinko Stick asks about the Legion Archives:
  

  But there’s a question I have about how this all affects me personally.
  
  Because it’s all about me, you see.
  
  What I want to know is, what effect does this have on the publishing rights to pre-existing Superboy-related material, such as the Legion of Super-Heroes Archives series that I’ve only recently started collecting in the last year or two and currently only own the first 3 volumes of (with the fourth on the way thanks to eBay)? If this decision stands, and the Siegels don’t cut some sort of licensing deal with the Time-Warner suits, will these, and anything else that happens to reprint a Superboy appearance, have to go out of print? Because that would make me rather unhappy.

  
  
• More discussion on the ToonZone message board includes this:
  

  They (LOSH/WBA) aren't in developement. They are well into production. Changing Superboy into Supergirl would be disasterously expensive. No, check that - impossible. I could see the whole shebang shut down before spending truckloads of cash on 'fixing' multiple episodes, some of which have to have shipped if it's going to hit KidsWB and/or Cartoon Network in the fall.

  
  

Some of the better discussion of the Super-Suit in general in the blogosphere and comics journalist forums can be found at:

• Absorbascon, where the commenters are discussing the need (or not) for a Superboy: "Is the concept of "Superboy" inherently ... flawed?"
  
  
• The Beat, which notes that
  

  It's of some note that this story has ben kept exceedingly quiet, unlike other, less meritorious claims for copyright by older comics creators. It's widely believed that negotiations have ben ongoing between the Siegel heirs and DC Comics execs who have been supportive of Superman creators Siegel and Joe Shuster in the past.

  
  
• Brian Cronin at CBR writes
  

  [Judge] Lew made it clear that, in his opinion, the television program "Smallville" (since that date) is infringing upon the copyright of the Siegels. However, Lew did not make a ruling on the "Smallville" issue, leaving it to be determined at a copyright infringement trial. The "Smallville" claim will go towards one simple decision - is "Smallville" a TV show about Superboy, or is it a show about a young Clark Kent?

  
  
• The Comics Reporter remarks on the story:
  

  The story has already moved through some of the usual suspects, and hit newspapers closer to the International Dateline than the U.S. is:
  

  Comic Book Resources
  

  ICv2.com
  

  Malaysia Star
  

  Newsarama
  

  TCJ.com
  

  ToonZone

  
  That should go up to three figures by lunchtime. A story like this is newswire crack.

  
  
• Tom Spurgeon introduces Mark Evanier's unique insights into the controversy:
  

  Comics historian and writer Mark Evanier has written a few concises posts about the heirs to Jerry Siegel having their claim to Superboy being upheld, and the potential that they may be due monies from the Smallville TV show. Start here, then read here and then go here. It's interesting reading because Mark writes with a lot of clarity and certainly has big-time comics-history chops, and as you'll see he still has to be careful how he characterizes certain elements of the historical development of the case. It's that weird.

  
  
• E! Online has a good story, written in a very easy-to-understand way, and quotes Supermanhomepage, Neal Adams, and Mark Evanier.
  

And of course, everyone is commenting on how this may relate to the ending of Infinite Crisis 6 (or not).