It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane…it’s Warner Brothers!

Another victory for Warner Brothers in a lifelong battle over the copyright to Superman. The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of Superman’s co-creator’s heirs, Joseph Shuster, to terminate Warner Brothers’ rights to the Superman copyright. Shuster’s heirs requested a hearing to challenge Warner Brothers’ copyright on the grounds that the 1976 Copyright Act allowed them to reclaim their portion of the comic character icon. A provision of the Copyright Act allows authors to terminate and reclaim previous assignments of copyrights.

Shuster’s heirs initially made an …

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Warner Bros. Wins Final Fight for Superman

On November 21, 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that Warner Brothers is the sole owner of Superman’s copyright.  The ruling should be the final legal battle in the lengthy ownership dispute with the estates of Superman’s co-creators.  The court described the case as “another chapter in the long-running saga regarding the ownership of copyrights in Superman – a story almost as old as the Man of Steel himself.”

Superman made his debut in 1938 as a character in Action Comics #1.  The …

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