Marvel wins appeal in Jack Kirby copyright case
Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk can continue to reside in Marvel's offices after a US federal appeal court rejected an ownership claim by the children of an artist who helped create them.
Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk can continue to reside in Marvel's offices after a US federal appeal court rejected an ownership claim by the children of an artist who helped create them.
Marvel sued in 2010 to prevent it, leading US 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 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."
It added: "Kirby's completed pencil drawings, moreover, were generally not free-standing creative works, marketable to any publisher as a finished or nearly finished product. They build on pre-existing titles and themes that Marvel had expended resources to establish - and in which Marvel held rights - and they required both creative contributions and production work that Marvel supplied. That the works are now valuable is therefore in substantial part a function of Marvel's expenditures over and above the flat rate it paid Kirby for his drawings."
The appeal court traced the history of Marvel, noting that it fell on hard times due to bad decisions in the 1940s and 1950s but did well again after the release of the first issues of in 1961. Other comics in the case included , , , and .
