Okay.
Look, I get that comics fans, if there is even the slightest hint of having their precious weekly comic flow interrupted, will throw a collective hissy, not unlike a three-year-old who has not yet gotten his juice. (Actually, this is unfair. Juice is a lot more important than comics are.) And I understand that a lot of comics fans have the legal sense of your average groundhog.
But, for the life of me, I don’t understand this argument, which I have seen advanced numerous times around the internets:
“Siegel and Shuster’s heirs do not deserve to control the rights to Superman, because they had nothing to do with his creation.”
See, that first part is fine. It’s a perfectly reasonable – if someone brutal – argument for expiry into the public domain upon creator’s death, and I actually agree with the general thrust of it, seeing as how I think public domain rights are being steadily trampled in favor of corporations. The problem is that the unspoken (or, hell, even spoken) corollary of this argument is:
“DC Comics deserves to control the rights to Superman.”
There is nobody working at DC Comics today who was involved in the development of the key elements of Superman, you know. Not a one. They’re all dead, or extremely, extremely retired. I can understand the argument that the Siegel estate doesn’t deserve a share of Superman at this point; the co-argument that a legal fiction does, however, completely contradicting the basis of the first argument, is just stupid.
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I’m sorry but reading the comments on Newsarama is like reading the comments on Youtube.
It’s your own fault for subjecting your mind to that shit. Were you really expecting intelligent arguments from that group?
I think the most amusing thing about the entire thing is that those guys think that this is about the comics at all.
But seriously, when you fucking sign up for an account there, the EULA says “Abandon all hope, ye who enter”.
I am a legal idiot, so I don’t know the true effect of the ruling. Is the Siegel family estate now entitled to back royalties for the Superman brand? I imagine there is some statute of limitations, but even so, that would be a lot of money.
I don’t have a problem with giving Siegel’s heirs some payback. Because Siegel didn’t enjoy the millionz due to him for his creation, his wife and children were deprived also.
But I agree that at some point the man in blue tights – along with Mickey Mouse, Popeye, and everyone else older than the sun – should enter the public domain.
I glanced through the comments on Newsarama for the first time re: David Mack’s…er, “homages” to Adam Hughes in the latest New Avengers (related scans_daily posts here). And it does manage to out-YouTube YouTube — not as much in the insipid nature of the comments, but the relentless defense of indefensible perspectives. It’s almost inspirational; even naked company shills don’t mount that fervent a defense, it’s something borne purely of passion or simple insanity.
I would’ve thought the basis of DC Comics deserving the rights would’ve been all of the stuff that’s been done maintaining the Superman brand and making it the billion dollar per year franchise that it is today. Even if all of the work was done by dead or retired people, the DC Comics of today is keeping the old S-Train running.
The relentless defense of indefensible perspectives seems one of the defining characteristics of comcs fandom (and much other fandom, for that matter).
But concerning Kevin Moore’s note, that at some point Big Blue should enter the public domain–that’s difficult. Because so much of good art (and Superman is) is archetypal; the execution of it is, ultimately, what makes it unique, but underneath are tropes, conventions, and reflections of myths older than any of those involved. I think the argument could be made (I may even try, one day) that, ultimately, Star Wars and Harry Potter are the same stories, simply with different executions (both of which go back to the myths Joseph Campbell wrote about).
Point is, public domain is only necessary when one believes in ownership of intellectual property. Superman’s execution might be unique, but the peaceful dude with supernatural powers, who puts aside selfish interest to further the salvation of others, is a story older even than Jesus (and of which the idea of “The Christ” is just one of its myriad permutations).
Kevin: If I understand the ruling correctly, the Siegel family owns 1/2 of the copyright to Action #1, effective April somethingth, 1999. Since all Superman comics and other-media appearances are derivative of that copyright, they are owed some royalties for all use of Superman (and Lois Lane) since that time.
How much those royalties amount to, that’s a question for trial. The jury will have to decide to what extent modern Superman exploitation is derivative of Action #1, since it’s clear that Jimmy Olsen, the Daily Planet, Krypton, and the like are DC’s additions. Additions to a derivative are, I believe, independently copyrighted and not derivative, under current US law.
That being said, if I were the Siegels’ lawyer, I’d be looking at Pete Coogan’s “Superhero: Origin of a genre”, which confidently and convincingly lays the entire superhero genre at the feet of Action #1. That’ll bolster their argument about how much Action #1 contributes to modern Superman stuff.
I don’t know anything about legal issues, but from a strictly moral standpoint, I find the “Siegel and Shuster’s heirs do not deserve to control the rights to Superman…” argument to be reprehensible.
I mean, actually, I don’t follow this stuff at all, so could someone please just answer this question: did DC screw Siegel and Shuster over? Because it sure seems that way to me, but if I’m wrong, I’d like to know before I make an ass out of myself.
…..
…..
What kind of juice?
Block, well at one point Joe Shuster was working as a *messenger* for DC Comics. From the time they were fired from Superman (late 40s in Shuster’s case – Siegel was rehired a few years later and stayed on until the mid 60s), they didn’t receive anything (other than a lawsuit settlement for $60,000 each in the 50s) until the Superman film was coming out, when they managed to guilt DC into paying them a whole $35,000 per year each for the rest of their lives.
Andrew – how much of the work done to make Superman the brand he is came from DC? How many people even read Superman comics any more? The ‘brand’ comes far more from the films, cartoons, TV series and so on than from the comics these days.
My own view is that copyright protections shouldn’t last anything like as long as they now do, but while they do the heirs of Siegel (and Shuster when his heirs’ turn comes) deserve every penny they can claw from DC and more besides. Those two men between them created an industry, a genre, and a genuine modern myth all in one, and they were treated like shit by the gangsters they made rich.
If it’s the case, then, that comics have little to do with the popularity of the Superman brand, and Siegel and Shuster only have rights to one comic issue, how are they entitled to monies derived these other products beyond the nebulous moral feeling that DC Comics ought to get screwed by retributive justice?
Andrew, it’s really very simple. The ‘Superman brand’ became popular back in the 1930s, when the comic would sell in the *millions*, rather than in the tens of thousands. When Siegel and Shuster were writing and drawing it. Those other products are all based on Siegel and Shuster’s work. They *created* ‘the Superman brand’ and made it popular. Anyone who has made any money off Superman has done so based on their work.
The $35,000 annual stipend to Siegel and Shuster was increased over time (mostly to avoid bad PR during the promotion of the Superman films, it should be said. Very few businesses increase pensions solely out of the kindness of their hearts.) By the time they died, I’m pretty sure it was up in six-figure territory, but I don’t have my reference materials at hand.
The thing that amazes me on all sides is that people think this is some of moral battle that has an effect on comics or creator rights.
THIS MEANS NOTHING GUYS.
It doesn’t matter if the siegels were beings that ate money and the souls of comic readers or if Warner Brothers (like DC really has any power in this situation) had basically raped each of Siegel and Shuster’s orifices and set them to die on the street, (even though this is very close to the truth).
This is the matter of a contract on both sides of the fence being adjusted by preceding legislation to be fair for everyone. The length of copyrights got extended and the courts though the fair thing to do was to give the original copyright holders, who when they signed the contract, signed the contract not for lifetime but for a period of 28 + 28 renewable years, the opportunity to renegotiate.
There are no other properties outside of Work for Hire anymore. All that shit got settle ages ago by people who realized how unfun this type of process would be. Someone could argue that Warner Brothers is using everything in their power to delay the situation of paying anyone money, and in this regards they are fucking awful pieces of shit for doing so. There was no legal reason for them at all to treat or pay off Siegel or Shuster before the copyrights transferred back in 1999.
Of course, in hindsight, it would have been a much fucking smarter thing to have taken care of that shit now instead of later.
I struggle with public domain. If I am a property owner, can’t I leave my land to the kids, even if they never tended it or dwelt on it? Yet somehow, because ideas are more nebulous, some public domain advocates seem to resent that an artist can bequeath the rights to his work to heirs, perhaps for generations. If I strike it rich by buying productive land or discovering a gold mine, am I not in my rights to leave it for my heirs instead of allowing the public or the government to seize it at my death?
Likewise, if I manage to write a masterful novel, poem, comic book character, blockbuster film, whatever, why can’t I leave that for my heirs? And like they will pass down the land I leave them, why can’t they pass down the material?
Not saying I’m entirely against public domain rights expiring at the death of a creator, it just seems to devalue the work of artists because it’s not physical. Beyond that, I can’t quite make the logical jump (someone help me) why the public is owed free access to my work on my death but not my land or other physical property.
…but anyway, you’re (Mr. Bird) absolutely right about a clear fallacy being committed here. If the heirs of Siegel and Shuster do not deserve control over Superman because they were not involved in the creation, this implies that only those involved in the creation deserve control. No living executives, writers, artists, editors, etc. were involved in the creation of Superman, therefore they do not deserve control.
I think fans may be worried what will happen if Superman becomes public domain (I have read some short stories that walk a line so fine between parody and appropriation because they flat out use the name Superman, Clark Kent, etc.), which may be understandable, but this may just be part of how Superman seals himself as part of the human mythos for centuries to come.
“Beyond that, I can’t quite make the logical jump (someone help me) why the public is owed free access to my work on my death but not my land or other physical property.”
Well, currently they aren’t, and the general attitude towards public domain (in the public at large, and not, say, at bOing bOing) is either “Whu?” or “Hey, this book of a classic story is extra cheap!”
I think the argument in favor of the difference is just that intellectual property is a much more abstract concept for anyone to get their head around, and is a relatively recent concept in the history of property ownership. I mean, once upon a time, NO property would pass to your heirs at death unless they could beat off all other contenders with a club. But that’s lost in the swirling mists of time, whereas copyright and patent really got their start in the (if I remember two years ago accurately) 18th Century. Copyright wasn’t even really taken seriously until late-1800s/early-1900s.
And when copyright was created, and treated like serious business, it was always written (in the US and, I believe, British legal traditions) as a limited right – you got to control the work for a while, but the only reason you got the control was because it would run out eventually. The reason it was limited was because we assume that no author starts from scratch, and therefore hasn’t earned total control of his work from now til foreverafter. Once you assume non-perpetual rights, you’re just defining when it ends.
So there is less of a history of these things passing from creator to heir on death; it’s a harder concept to get your head around (how much of the rights for a book by a long-dead author belong to any one of his three children? what does that mean?);
oh, forgot to end my semi-colons.
“; and we assume that no creator has actually created every jot and tittle of his work, and is inherently building on others’ conceptions, so has no right to perpetual copyright.”