Kirby Estate Officially Sues Marvel
As a follow up to Brian Matus’ post regarding the Kirby Lawsuit, The Hollywood Reporter reports that children of comic book icon Jack Kirby have officially sued Marvel to terminate copyrights and gain profits from comic book creations.
The suit follows the September move by the estate to send out 45 notices of termination to Marvel and owner the Walt Disney Co., as well as Sony, Universal, Fox and others, hoping to recapture control of much of Kirby’s work. In January, Marvel filed its own lawsuit, claiming the creations were “work-made-for-hire” and that Marvel was the real “author” of such works under the 1909 Copyright Act.
You can view the full complaint here (PDF).
One Response to “Kirby Estate Officially Sues Marvel”
Lord Shaper
Kirby’s family is going to make claims about the magnitude of his work. Marvel/Disney will counter with “work for hire” as the argument. M/D will win the case. This suit comes after Dave Sim pioneered the way for artists/writers in comics to be their own entities and know better about the effort put into making comics, as well as the creative muscle it takes to create a Spider-Man, Superman or other properties. That the Kirby family woke up to his significance late in life and decided to reap the rewards of what they believe is a cash cow isn’t a viable argument against precedence and already tried cases on the matter.