Superman heirs win ruling

Not the heirs to the man of steel himself, mind you, but to Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster, who created the action hero. Siegel sold the rights 70 years ago to Detective Comics for $130 and a federal judge in L.A. has ruled that Siegel's wife and daughter were entitled to reclaim their share of the copyright. “We were just stubborn,” Joanne Siegel, Siegel’s widow, told the NYT. “It was a dream of Jerry’s, and we just took up the task.” Still to be resolved during a trial – if there is a trial – is how much Time Warner owes the Siegel heirs for use of the character since 1999 (that's when their ownership is deemed to have been restored). And don't forget that TW is certain to appeal. (Rights to Shuster's estate are apparently being handled separately; Shuster had left no children and had no heirs to file similar papers).

In an unusually detailed narrative, the judge’s 72-page order described how Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster, as teenagers at Glenville High School in Cleveland became friends and collaborators on their school newspaper in 1932. They worked together on a short story, “The Reign of the Superman,” in which their famous character first appeared not as hero, but villain. By 1937, they were shopping comic strips in which the classic Superman elements -- cape, logo, and Clark Kent alter-ego -- were already set. When Detective Comics bought 13 pages of work for its new Action Comics series the next year, the company sent Mr. Siegel a check for $130, and received in return a release from both creators granting the company rights to Superman “to have and hold forever,” the order noted.

In the late 1940s, a referee in a New York court upheld Detective Comics’ copyright, prompting Siegel and Shuster to drop their claim in exchange $94,000. More than 30 years later, DC Comics (the successor to Detective Comics) gave the creators each a $20,000-per-year annuity that was later boosted to $30,000. In 1997, however, Mrs. Siegel and her daughter served copyright termination notices under provisions of a 1976 law that permits heirs, under certain circumstances, to recover rights to creations.