More On The Kirby/Marvel Decision

More On The Kirby/Marvel Decision: "
As the Kirby-Marvel/Disney lawsuit judgment begins to settle in people’s heads, we’re beginning to see lengthier responses to it. Over at The Comics Journal, Michael Dean points out that the law was against Kirby’s heirs in the first place:

It was a ruling that follows from a long line of precedents, including the recent judgment that quashed Dan DeCarlo’s challenging of Archie’s copyrights. As Judge McMahon said, it’s not about fairness. Work for hire is the best tool corporations have ever had for exploiting creative talent and the courts’ consistent safeguarding of that concept has ensured that the intent of the Copyright Act of 1976 has in part been undermined. The Act was based on a new understanding of the ways that intellectual property can turn out to have a value far beyond anything dreamt of at the time of its creation. When Siegel and Schuster sold the rights to Superman, they had no idea that the property could one day be parlayed into Blu-Ray discs and video games and computer apps — neither, for that matter, did DC. After a few decades, the property was expected to go into the Public Domain. Under pressure from entertainment companies, however, Congress has repeatedly extended the maximum limits of copyright terms, thereby adding value to intellectual property that it didn’t have at the time creators like Siegel and Kirby were turning their brainstorms over to publishers in exchange for modest pay checks.

With moral judgments put to one side, legally, the decision was sound, according to Terry Hart at the Copyhype blog:

Unfortunately for the heirs, the court found the evidence they presented thoroughly unconvincing. One piece, a 1972 agreement that was the first written contract between Kirby and Marvel, even contained a clause stating that Kirby agreed the works were made for hire… In total, the facts and evidence presented convinced the court that Kirby’s creations were works made for hire. Marvel was the statutory author under the 1909 Act, making the termination notices filed by Kirby’s heirs invalid. This conclusion is, I think, on solid legal ground and consistent with previous cases.

Depressing, but both links are well worth reading.
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