Complications Of Ownership Society: Family Claiming Rights To Spiderman Doesn't Seem To Have Created Spiderman
from the whoops dept
We were just writing about how the heirs of Jack Kirby were alerting... well... pretty much all of Hollywood that they were going to use their termination rights to take back the copyright on a large number of famous comic book characters. We noted how this showed one of the more bizarre aspects of copyright law. However, there's another, perhaps even more ridiculous parts: which is with these sorts of characters, no one's really sure who actually owns the copyright. For example, one of the characters the Kirby heirs are looking to get control over is Spiderman. The problem? There's a fair amount of evidence (including quotes from the Kirby family) that Jack Kirby did not create Spiderman and thus never should have the copyright on Spiderman. If true, that would indicate a rather major case of copyfraud, whereby someone claims copyright over something they have no rights to. But, in this case, it also highlights the silliness behind termination rights on things that were, at best, group creations for larger entities.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: copyright, jack kirby, spiderman
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My common sense is tingling...
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Common Sense
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Re: Common Sense
LOL! Man, you should copyright that!
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Heavy Metal
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Just another reason
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Limits
To keep it flexible and consistent, I'd limit it to a length of time equal to the voting age.
To keep it internationally consistent, I'd limit it to the lowest (or highest) voting age of the western countries.
We could call that the "definition of a generation" for legal purposes.
An pubic limitation on an intellectual work should be limited to a single generation so that following generations can use the work to make their own contributions to the "body humanity".
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Re: Limits
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Taking my childhood away from me
Or at the very least, could somebody come up with a way to keep these fucking leeches from polluting our minds before we know what they are doing so we can live our lives without looking over our shoulders to make sure we haven't violated someone's 'intellectual property' rights? So original thoughts are all the we can possibly think unless we are fully aware of the obligation that comes with being exposed to the profound thoughts of others? THAT is something I would be willing to pay good money for. I swear to all that is holy, I'd be willing to erase all music, all literature, all fantastical cartoony characters from my mind just so I could be free of this godawful grasping entitled bullshit.
Oh, and I hope Mr. Kirby's heirs have devised a plan to compensate all the people who worked their asses off writing and drawing stories about these characters when Mr. Kirby was feeding the worms at the cemetery. They fucking deserve something for their hard work too, even if they were just plagiarizing hacks riding on the back of the GREAT ONE himself.
If there are any ethical lawyers left out there, please, PLEASE do something to save us from this shit. Or at least encourage your clients to keep their ideas to themselves so we don't have to hear from their grandchildren a century from now! Please!
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Re: Taking my childhood away from me
After reading that, I'm getting the impression that someone who is against copyright law (at least the way it currently exists) can actually form a well-thought-out, coherent argument. You must be disguising your agenda, because that's clearly impossible.
Or have you not been swayed by the copyright lawyers' propaganda? How could you not be swayed by such emotional legal mumbo-jumbo?
Seriously, though, my only problem with your argument can be summed up with a quote by David Keuck: "Profanity is the common crutch of the conversational cripple." Which is not to say that it doesn't have it's place, just that overuse is, well, obscene.
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Re: Re: Taking my childhood away from me
I do, however, stand by my original thesis - if this continuous grasping after every idea is to continue, I'd rather not be subjected to them at all. Let's add intellectual property to the group of things one does not talk about in polite company. If being exposed to someone's ideas means I am to live in fear for the rest of my days lest I accidentally let slip some hint that I found inspiration somehow, let alone a specific mention of some aspect of the work, then please keep your work from me. Tell your stories to your family around the dinner table and spare the rest of us. We don't want the great responsibility that comes with the great power bestowed upon us.
The thing is, I've been emotionally removed from many of the "IP" battles I've heard about in my lifetime, but this one hit closer to the heart. The more human heroes that Stan and Jack created back in the early 60s inspired me in a way that the more god-like heroes of earlier times (and other companies) did not, and had a profound influence on how I have conducted my life. I can say with near certainty that I'm not alone in this, given how many people love these characters (and how many have expressed their dismay at how they have been treated by recent incarnations of Marvel). Thanks for the gut-punch, "Kirby family". I'll encourage my children to look for their inspiration elsewhere - it's much safer and less expensive.
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Re: Re: Taking my childhood away from me
Fuck David Keuck. Just because the cocksucker couldn't make proper use of the profane to shock his audience into paying attention, he has to get all high and mighty.
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Re: Taking my childhood away from me
Look, I don't know much, but if you're burning your friends and then ditching their charred ashes to by new comic books, then yeah, you're evil....
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Re: Re: Taking my childhood away from me
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Re: Taking my childhood away from me
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Jeez, Kirby's kids are fucking dumbasses. Especially when Stan Lee has for the last 40 years been credit with the original characters and stories.
Seriously, Kirby's grandkids, please get jobs.
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What's in a name?
And yes, individual termination rights on group creations is a bit silly.
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Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created Spider-Man.
Kirby's heirs have NO claim to Spidey. nor do they have complete claim to ANY Marvel character, as Lee was co-creator of them.
And just to note, it's spelled with a hyphen and capital M, not as Spiderman. But as Spider-Man.
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