Jason Czeskleba Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004 Posts: 4637
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Posted: 03 October 2014 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | 1
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That is true, but the publisher has received the windfall they paid for through 56 years of copyright control. When FF #1 was published, Goodman expected he would own the characters either for 56 years or until he sold them, but not beyond that. The 1976 revision creates significant additional benefit for IP owners that did not exist at the time of original creation, so it builds in an opportunity for the creators to share financially in that additional benefit. I'm sure Disney would rather pay the Kirby estate a settlement than have the characters go into public domain, which is what would be happening in a couple years if not for the 1976 revision. In this case, the law seems to have worked just as intended... both parties (Disney/Marvel and the Kirbys) benefit from the change in the law.
Regarding the question of what people thought back in the day: As Busiek notes, Marvel's checks sometimes had a stamp on them which said the freelancer was assigning all rights for their work to Marvel, which suggests that Marvel viewed it as an all-rights sale rather than work for hire. The truth is that it's unclear. An argument can be made for the work being for hire or for it being an all-rights sale. That's why the courts were involved in deciding.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 03 October 2014 at 1:07pm
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