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The short ‘n’ sweet: A court has validated the termination of copyright that Jerry Siegel’s heirs filed ten years ago, granting them half the copyright to the Superman story published in Action Comics #1. Since that’s the first appearance of Superman ever, that gives them half the rights to everything that proceeded from it, including recompense for stories published in the last ten years or so.
In a few years, Superman’s other co-creator’s heirs — those of Joe Shuster — will be able to do the same and claim their half.
Meaning that DC parent company Time-Warner needs to cut a deal in order to keep the character in any usable format.
Some people are decrying the “greedy” behavior of the heirs, but no one seems concerned with the greedy behavior of the company and its lawyers, who dragged this out for ten years when a deal could have been cut from the get-go.
Anyway, it’s nice to see a case where justice delayed is NOT justice denied. DC will work out a deal, Superman will continue to fly, Siegel and Shuster’s heirs will get a nice piece of change, and the world will keep turning.