Marvel Wins Court Decision Over Characters Jack Kirby Created

Above, Spider-Man climbs the side of a building in Harajuku, Tokyo.  Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The heirs of comics giant Jack Kirby lost a big court battle over the copyrights to characters published in Marvel Comics.

An article on the court's action was posted by The Japan Times:

NEW YORK – Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk can continue to reside in Marvel’s offices after a federal appeals court Thursday rejected an ownership claim by the children of the artist who helped create them. 

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan agreed with a lower court judge who denied claims by the family of Jack Kirby, the legendary artist who died in 1994 and whose work spanned more than half a century. 

His heirs in California and New York wanted to terminate Marvel’s copyrights from 2014 through 2019 to comics published from 1958 to 1963. Marvel Worldwide Inc. sued in January 2010 to prevent it, leading U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in July 2011 to conclude the work was done “for hire,” a legal term that rendered the heirs’ claims invalid. She said the 1909 copyright law that applies to the case presumed that Marvel was considered the author and owner of Kirby’s creations because the characters were made at Marvel’s expense. 

The appeals court agreed, saying that when “Kirby sat down to draw, then, it was not in the hope that Marvel or some other publisher might one day be interested enough in them to buy, but with the expectation, established through their ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship, that Marvel would pay him.”

I don't know the particulars of this case, but based upon what I read in the article, it appears to me that the court's decision was the correct one. One would have to read the full contract between Marvel and Kirby to see where the family felt they had a foot in the door.

To read the full story, go here.

UPDATE:

Some people sympathetic to the cause of comics creators already have complained over my opinion of the court's decision. Sorry, but my opinion stands. Kirby's situation is different from Siegel's and Shuster's as the materials and Superman character used in Action Comics #1 pre-existed before National Comics/Detective Comics/DC Comics/National Periodical Publications hired them. Kirby's work was under Marvel's direction, etc. as an employee of Marvel and, therefore, falls under the 1909 work-for-hire statute. The law may suck, but it is still the law.