1999 Comic Book News Archives

September 3, 1999: Super-Custody Battle!

Look up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a Copyright Custody Battle! For more than 60 years, Superman could not be stopped, not even by Kryptonite. But now the last son of Krypton, an orphan rocketed to Earth, is torn between the family of one of his creators and publisher DC Comics in a super-battle over his copyright.

DC Comics stands to lose half the rights to Superman due to documents filed in the U.S. Copyright Office by heirs of the late Superman creator Jerry Siegel. His wife, Joanne (the first model for Lois Lane) and daughter, Laura Siegel Larson, revoked the transfer of copyright Siegel and his co-creator, the late Joe Shuster, granted DC Comics in 1938. The price back then: a mere $130. Under the law, Siegel's heirs have been entitled to half of the revenue from Superman starting April 16, 1999, says Michael Lovitz, an attorney with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld specializing in copyright law, who has been following the case for some time.




1999 Comic News

Listed below are all the News items archived for 1999. Archiving started in September 1999.


Back to the News Archive Contents page.

Back to the Latest News page.