Siegel family regains rights to Superman

[Ajax]

I wonder how much they are going to get.

[Talavar]

This raises some interesting, and for DC, troubling issues.  Providing DC doesn't win in appeal, the Siegels now own 1/2 of the Superman copyright, and in a few years, the Schuster estate will likely get control of the other half.  There's still a likely lawsuit coming to determine how much of the profits of Superman tv shows, movies, etc. the Siegels will get, but theoretically DC is going to be in the position of licensing, rather than owning, their flagship character.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I wonder how they'll deal with this.  After the Superboy copyright was lost by DC, they erased the modern day superboy and don't even refer to him as such or Superboy Prime as such in any recent comics.

They can't, however, just get rid of Superman himself.  That would be unthinkable.

This could also have interesting implications in everything from the upcoming movie, the Smallville TV series and even DVDs of old series and movies.  (Fortunately I already own the complete Superman TAS)

[yell0w_lantern]

I guess they'll just have to use Captain Marvel.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Which, thanks to their own lawsuit years ago, is legally considered to be a copy of Superman and cannot be used without permission of the Superman copyright owner.

Yep, I had forgotten about that, but it means the family could shut down Captain Marvel as well.

[Talavar]

But even if they could just attempt to switch over to the Big Red Cheese (which as cat points out, they can't due to their own legal wrangling) it would be incredibly difficult.  Superman's popularity & recognizability goes way beyond the comic in a way Captain Marvel's hasn't since the 1940s.  That sort of culture-wide recognition doesn't happen over night.  My bet is that DC will fight this as long and as hard as they can, and if that fails, they'll pay handsomely to maintain an exclusive licence of the character.

[MJB]

Personally, I would like to see the Siegel's retain ownership. Siegel and Schuster were screwed out of the rights many moons ago. It is only right that the heirs of Jerome Siegel gain half of the rights of Superman.

-MJB

[Green Hornet]

This will all come down to money.  DC will drag this through court for years and will try to run the Siegel family out of money to fight.  If the Siegel family wins all the court battles.  DC will determine the cost to them and if there is not enough profit kill Superman.  Then they will raise up another hero to replace him.  This could open doors for other court suits in the future for other comic creations.  So what can be the Siegel family gain could lead to the fans lost.

[Talavar]

Yeah, 'cuz just replacing Superman would be so easy. 

If DC cancelled Superman totally, it would probably take another 70 years for whatever character they created to become as well-known & profitable; actually, it would probably take longer, since comics aren't nearly as popular or influental now as they were when Superman got his start.  And the comic itself is hardly the money-maker here, it's the tv shows, cartoons, movies, and merchandise with the Superman logo on it, and its in the best interests of the Siegels AND DC to keep that money coming. 

I'm 99.9% certain that some agreement will be reached where DC pays the Siegels (& later the estate of Joe Schuster) X dollars a year for the exclusive use of the character.  The Siegels would retain ownership, it would be like DC is renting Superman instead of owning him.  The only reasons preventing that would either be unreasonable money demands on the part of the Siegels, or a desire to spite DC (which I could partly understand).  Both would end up as a situation where they would end up hurting themselves however.  The Siegels still don't own the rights to most of Superman's supporting cast, or many developments to the character that occurred later, so licensing the character to another company (Marvel say), would end up with a weird, neutered & only semi-recognizable version of a Superman comic.  And the amount of money it would take to make retaining the licence to Superman unprofitable to DC/Time Warner would be a ridiculous sum of money, particularly since they retain some of the copyright (for foreign markets).

[the_ultimate_evil]

one thing i'm worried about here is as you say dc would be renting the character so will this mean that all future storyies have to be approved by the owners. that could cause a few problems

[Kommando]

I guess they'll just have to use Captain Marvel.

I could easily see Wonder Woman filling the niche, with the exception of fanboys who couldn't bear to see a woman in the top iconic spot.  More likely, DC without Superman would become the Batverse.  And Batgod would be everywhere.

[stumpy]

Some sort of deal will be brokered so that DC can continue to publish Superman books and use the character in a commercial fashion. The idea that Warner/DC could run the Siegel family into the ground financially with neverending legal challenges is a little off. The Seigels have access to financial resources aside from whatever personal holdings they have by dint of the fact that they can leverage their potential eventual success in the lawsuit with creditors. In other words, the fact that they are very likely to come into some substantial money in the future means lawyers and so on will represent them for quite some time even if they can't afford to pay right now.

Meanwhile, DC/Warner is a company and its goal is to make a buck, not specifically to keep the Siegels from making one. Obviously, there is a trade-off between how much DC can make and how much it can share and it will want the best deal it can make for itself. But, make no mistake, Superman makes DC/Warner money and they will come to an accommodation if there is any reasonable way to do it.

It's also worth noting that DC/Warner has invested plenty of its resources in developing Superman as a character and a brand over the years. That is, all the value that exists in the character isn't solely from Siegel and Schuster's contribution. I really don't know how the courts would account for that, but I can't see how it would be right to ignore it completely.

If I were DC, I would try to pay a lump sum for full ownership of the character in perpetuity and avoid this nonsense in the future.

[JKCarrier]

Superman isn't going anywhere. There's a good overview of the case and its ramifications here:

http://uncivilsociety.org/2008/03/a-siegel-superman-copyright-de.html

DC still has the right to publish Superman, they just have to share some of the profits with the Siegels. Theoretically, the Siegels also have the right to license Superman out to someone else, but if they did, they in turn would have to share the profits with DC. So really, it's in both parties' best interests to work together, rather than putting out competing versions of the character. (Although it might be kind of cool to see what various creators might come up with, riffing on the idea of of Superman based solely on what was established in Action #1)

[danhagen]

Legally, the situation might be similar to when the James Bond rights were split in two, resulting in the strange first "Casino Royale" film in 1967 and the remake of Thunderball called "Never Say Never Again."
Would these rights not also include Lois Lane, who appeared in the first issue of Action Comics?
If this results in a more creative use of the Superman character, that would be great (Something like Alan Moore's Supreme, who was really Superman, of course). I would be fascinated to see a 1938, lower-powered Superman series that is well done. But I could also see it leaving him in legal limbo, and killing his appearances. And if he were to be replaced in the DCU, Captain Marvel ("Shazam") would be the obvious choice.
It's useful to remember that, in a more fundamental sense, none of these people or corporations "own" Superman. He is a cultural meme owned by the world at large because he is so famous and mythic. All costumed super heroes are variations of the meme.

[Talavar]

In terms of power-set/appearance Captain Marvel makes a good Superman stand-in; in terms of public awareness he's at the back of the pack.  Plus, as has been pointed out (and firming up my belief that some people don't read other people's posts) if Superman goes, so goes Captain Marvel.  Due to DC's own legal-wrangling, Captain Marvel is held to be derivative of Superman, and can only be used at the discretion of the holder of the Superman copyright.

But (as has also been pointed out several times) Superman isn't going anywhere.  DC won't kill him off permanently or stop publishing Superman comics, for many reasons that have already been stated, and I'm not going to re-hash here.  If you missed them, scroll up.

[danhagen]

I believe the Superman v. The Greatest American Hero lawsuit established that, at least since the 1980s, caped, flying, super-strong, super-tough superguys are now so prevalent that they can no longer be said to be legally derivative of Superman. I wonder if that could retroactively affect "Shazam?" (Doesn't Marvel control the "Captain Marvel" name now?)

[JKCarrier]

DC isn't going to lose Superman. The ruling says "each co-owner has an independent right to use or license the use of the copyright". The only difference is that now they have to give the Siegels a share of the profits.