Thanks to a 1976 change in copyright law, the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel have been able to reclaim a share of the iconic character.

The ruling by the United States District Court Central Court of California means that since 1999 the Siegel estate has been a co-owner of Superman with DC Comics, and is thereby entitled to a share of the licensing and publication revenues the comic book publisher has realized in the last eight years. The court declined, however, to apportion any profits or to rule on whether Siegel's heirs can share in revenues generated by Warner Bros. or other subsidiaries of Time Warner, which owns DC Comics. DC also continues to own Superman outright in all foreign jurisdictions where it has registered the character under local copyright law.

The court's decision stems from a notice filed by the Siegel estate in 1999, seeking to terminate the original grant of copyright to Detective Comics (DC's corporate predecessor) in 1938. Siegel and his creative partner, Joe Shuster, assigned the rights to the character to Detective when they sold a batch of Superman comics to the comic book publisher. For their work, they received $130.

Under the Copyright Act of 1909, then in force, the holder of a copyright could enforce its claim for twenty-eight years and then renew it for a further twenty-eight. The Act's authors structured copyrights this way with the intent that copyrights revert to their original creators at the end of their initial twenty-eight period regardless of whether those creators had in the meantime granted or sold their rights to another party. In this way, the original creators would be able to extract a better market price for their creation by gaining the right to sell the recaptured copyright after it had demonstrated its true market value during its inaugural period.

A later Supreme Court ruling, however, largely vitiated this structure by upholding the legality of contracts that forced creators to sign over rights to both the inaugural and renewal periods, and a 1974 decision expressly found that Siegel and Shuster had signed away the second renewal period when they had executed their original contract. They had been unsuccessful in an earlier lawsuit when they tried rescinding their contract with Detective Comics on the basis that they had not received fair value for the character.

In 1976, however, Congress extended the duration of copyright renewal periods by nineteen years. At the same time, it sought to mitigate the effects of the Supreme Court's Fred Fisher Music Co. decision by expressly giving creators who met a narrowly drawn set of criteria a chance to terminate their grant of copyright. It was under this legislation that Siegel's heirs filed a notice of termination with DC in 1999.

The judge in the case noted that the 1976 act set a high bar for creators attempting such a termination, but found that Siegel's estate had been mostly successful. Thanks to an error in the Siegels' notice of termination, however, he did rule that DC still has the untrammeled right to "exploit the image of a person with extraordinary strength who wears a black and white leotard and cape," though it would not be allowed to identify this character as "Superman."

The court's ruling does not effect profits or revenues accrued by Time Warner before 1999. Subsequent judicial decisions will settle the apportioning of post-1999 profits and whether the Siegels have a claim on money made off the character by other Time Warner units.

The estate of Joe Shuster has also filed a termination notice, which, if successful, would sever DC's domestic rights to Superman by returning the half of the copyright it currently retains to Shuster's estate.

Warner Bros maintains rights to Superman after court victory

Warner Bros Pictures has claimed a major victory on its fight to defend its rights to the Superman franchise.

A Los Angeles federal judge legally denied the effort taken by heirs of Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster to reclaim their 50 per cent interest from the fabled Kryptonian superhero, reported Ace Showbiz.

Judge Otis D Wright II of Federal District Court ruled that a 1992 binding agreement between Shuster's sister Jean & brother Frank and DC Comics had prevented the siblings from attempting to terminate copyrights.

In the agreement, Jean forfeited rights in return for Warners' settling of Frank's debts and payment of USD 25,000 a year for the rest of her life. "The court finds that the 1992 agreement, which represented the Shuster heirs' opportunity to renegotiate the prior grants of Joe Shuster's copyrights, superseded and replaced all prior grants of the Superman copyrights. The 1992 agreement thus represents the parties' operative agreement and... is not subject to termination," Wright said.

The judge added, "By taking advantage of this opportunity, she Jean exhausted the single opportunity provided by statute to the Shuster heirs to revisit." Superman, first created in comic form in the 1930s, has become one the most valuable franchises for Warner Bros. The legendary character has generated over USD 500 million domestically from five movie adaptations. It also grossed billions of dollars from toys, games, comic books and TV series such as Smallville.

With the ruling, Warners and DC Comics are now allowed to move forward with their plans to produce the sequel to upcoming Man of Steel if the big-budget movie proves successful.

The studio can also move forward to produce DC's Justice League movie, which would have been impossible without the appearance of Superman.

At a Nov. 5 appeals court hearing, the studio will attempt to overturn the Siegels’ copyright termination and Toberoff will seek more control over the character for his clients and to deny accusations of impropriety that Warner has made against him.