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7 October 2014Copyright

Superman victory for DC Comics

DC Comics has emerged victorious in its ownership dispute with the heir to the co-creator of Superman after the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal against an earlier ruling.

The court’s decision, announced yesterday (October 6), was the third time the estate of co-creator Joseph Shuster had failed to reclaim the superhero’s copyright.

Shuster’s claims were initially rejected at the US District Court for the Central District of California and then by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last year.

The dispute dates back to 2003, when Shuster’s estate tried to reclaim the character’s copyright, which it had assigned to film studio Warner Bros subsidiary DC under a 1938 agreement, by filing a notice of termination.

In response, DC said that under a more recent agreement, signed in 1992 by Shuster’s siblings, the earlier deal was revoked and the copyright re-granted to DC.

DC claimed the 2003 challenge was invalid because US law only allows challenges to copyright agreements signed before 1978, and the 1992 deal had superseded the original 1938 deal.

Superman was created by Shuster alongside Jerry Siegel when the pair were students in 1933; the character was sold to DC in 1938.

Since then it has been developed in various television and film series, and DC is responsible for developing the Superman brand in the print media as well as in TV and film.

The case is the second involving comic book characters in just over a week following an earlier settlement between Disney-owned comic book producer Marvel Entertainment and artist Jack Kirby.

Kirby’s family claimed Marvel had not been granted a licence to use images of characters including the Incredible Hulk and X-Men that he had helped create.

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22 November 2013   Comic book creator DC Comics remains in charge of the copyright to Superman after the latest decision in a decade-long ownership dispute over the character.
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