Oddly enough, many years ago I met the man primarily responsible for Disney’s 1998 copyright extension of Mickey Mouse (et. al) but I never thought to ask him how that sausage was made. I don’t know if he would really would have gotten into the details anyway.
At issue for Marvel/Disney are two somewhat-related issues regarding the rights to many of their iconic characters, including Iron Man, Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Doctor Strange. Via Reuters.com:
Under the Copyright Act [of 1909], an artist can terminate a copyright assignment after 35 years by giving notice at least two years in advance.
You’ve probably heard the phrase “work for hire” thrown around recently, that is the position that a company owns the creative IP of its employees because they are paid to produce said IP. This will be interesting to see how it plays out legally. The spirit of the law would say artists and writers such as Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, and Gene Colan are integral to the foundation of the enormous profits enjoyed by Marvel today, and their original paid compensation is nowhere near fair.
And then there is the public domain ticking clock. Ticking very slowly, though.
U.S. copyright law (this differs internationally) is written so that characters, as precisely identified in a written work, become public domain after 95 years from date of publication. Disney fought this successfully twice, but there is no guarantee those decisions will stand as precedent. I believe Marvel’s first character eligible for public domain may be Steve Rogers as Captain America. Therefore, the estates of Lee, Ditko, etc. would want to move on their copyright acquisitions well before the public domain issue comes into play.
How is this all going to play out? Well, one step at a time. Motions, filings, and then appeals no matter who wins each decision. It is going to take awhile. The potential ramifications are enormous, however. Suppose the estates of Steve Ditko and/or Stan Lee get the rights to the Peter Parker Spider-Man. They could work out something with Disney for business as usual but they could also approach Apple, which has plenty of money, and might be interested in making money from the web-spinning wall-crawler, even if they lack the physical infrastructure Disney has with their theme parks.
