2013 Merchandise & Miscellaneous News Archives

March 22, 2013: Judge Confirms Warner Bros. Owns Superman

Superman Court Case It was another court win for Warner Bros., with a federal judge confirming on Wednesday that a 2001 agreement was enforceable, granting DC Comics full ownership of the rights to Superman.

    The Court GRANTS DC's motion for summary judgment on DC's fourth counterclaim and holds that the October 19, 2001 agreement remains enforceable and operated itself to transfer the Siegels Superman rights to DC. This ends this Court's involvement in the parties' dispute ....

    The ruling itself addresses Toberoff's arguments for getting around the agreement. The court agreed that it to make sure that the agreement did indeed transfer the rights, but as we discussed in my previous post the court found the matter to have been resolved by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. It also makes a quick aside about the fact that a certain argument was brought years later than it should have, which again is not a surprise.

    After declaring the Superman copyright dispute to be over, the court goes on to ask for briefing on a couple additional issues that one would think have been resolved by the settlement, but the court wants to make absolutely certain before it ends the legal proceedings once and for all. The issues: the Superboy rights and the early Action #1 promotional ads.

    One can expect that DC will make try to make quick work of both.

While this is undoubtedly a major disappointment for the Siegel and Shuster heirs, the legacy of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster will never be forgotten. Superman fans the world over salute them for bringing us the first and greatest superhero of them all.

Source: ComicsBeat.com. Also see a similar report at HollywoodReporter.com.



2013 Merchandise & Miscellaneous News

Listed below are all the Merchandise & Miscellaneous News items archived for 2013.


Back to the News Archive Contents page.

Back to the Latest News page.