Welcome back, true believers! We continue our exploration into the Copyright journey of some of our most iconic heroes. It will make it easier to follow if the authors divide the most relevant aspects of this story....more
Many of us grew up reading comic books, watching cartoons Saturday mornings and/or after school, and we are currently in Phase Two of the most ambitious and successful cinematic project of all time: The Marvel Cinematic...more
- What will the “Endgame” be for the lawsuit between Walt Disney Company and former Marvel comic book creators? In the spring of this year, a host of famed artists and illustrators of Marvel characters such as Iron Man,...more
Well, today is the big day. If you’re reading this week’s installment of the Spotlight, it means that you survived the long and arduous journey of the name, image and likeness (NIL) era in college sports. Indeed, with the...more
Copyright in characters is not a new concept but it can take interesting twists. We saw this recently when litigation over the Netflix movie Enola Holmes raised the question just how far the term of copyright in Sherlock...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in favor of the composer of the 1960s Iron Man theme song, finding material facts in dispute as to whether the song was commissioned as a work for hire. Jack Urbont v. Sony...more
In Urbont v. Sony Music Entertainment Inc., 15-1778, the Second Circuit recently revived claims against Sony and Ghostface Killah, holding that although third parties may raise a work for hire defense, here there were factual...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a copyright infringement complaint by an entity that has brought similar copyright ownership claims against famed comic book author...more
Close on the heels of the settlement between Marvel Comics and Jack Kirby’s heirs, which ended their dispute over copyright in a number of iconic comic book characters, the heirs to one of Superman’s co-creators, artist...more
As regular readers of this blog will know, comic book superheroes frequently find themselves at the center of legal disputes over copyright in fictional characters. In many cases, both sides agree that the characters in...more