For one thing, Lieber and the heirs want to board the gravy train, not derail it. Rest assured, Marvel movies aren’t going anywhere, regardless of how these litigations play out. “Let Marvel keep making films with the characters and making literally millions of people happy,” pleaded one poster.Īnother commented, “If the guy wins … WE are the ones who loose.
Ripples of shock spread through the Twitter-verse as superhero-movie fans panicked at the prospect of an imagined world without Spider-Man. News of the Ditko filing broke last week, and the rest of the terminations were revealed as Marvel/Disney’s requests for declaratory relief were made public. Marvel’s immediate response in this opening skirmish has been to file for declaratory relief from each of the terminations on the grounds that all the characters identified in the terminations were created under the same terms of work for hire that led the courts to dismiss Toberoff’s terminations on behalf of Jack Kirby in 20. If upheld by the courts, these terminations would take effect in 2023, two years after notice was filed. Toberoff’s arguments are based on a provision of the Copyright Act of 1976 that allowed copyright terms to be extended only if the original authors have a chance to reclaim the rights during a five-year window beyond the copyright renewal date.
They cover certain characters, stories and story elements that were introduced by the above co-creators in issues of Tales to Astonish, Journey into Mystery, Strange Tales and Tales of Suspense between 19. The terminations were filed on behalf of Larry Lieber and the estates and heirs of Steve Ditko (brother Patrick), Gene Colan (daughter Nanci Solo and son Erik Colan), Don Heck (cousin Keith Dettwiler) and Don Rico (Michelle Hart-Rico and Buz Donato Rico III) by attorney Marc Toberoff, a veteran of the comics-industry copyright wars. Features Journey Into Marvel/Disney’s Copyright WarsĪs a legal window of opportunity opened for creators of much of Marvel’s groundbreaking 1960s superhero line, they and their estates unleashed a tsunami of copyright terminations in recent weeks that threatened Marvel’s ownership of: Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the Falcon, Hawkeye, Blade and Marvel’s version of Captain Marvel.