2012’s The Avengers.Photo: Marvel Enterprises/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Marvelis fighting to keep the full rights toThe Avengerscharacters.
Toberoff’s five clients are attempting to reclaim the rights to characters they helped create — which include Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor. Strange, Ant-Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Falcon and Thor — who are now estimated to be worth billions of dollars combined, according toTHR.
Poster forThe Avengers(2012).Marvel Studios
Disney’s lawsuits hinge on the concept of copyright termination. PerTHR,“authors or their heirs can reclaim rights once granted to publishers after waiting a statutory set period of time,” as stated in copyright law. Some of Toberoff’s termination notices would take effect as soon as 2023, including the Ditko estate’s notice of termination on Spider-Man.
Dan Petrocelli, who is representing Disney, is filing multiple lawsuits in cases that “will focus on the creation of famous comic book characters and whether they should be deemed as works made for hire,“THRreports.
In a complaint filed against Lieber, Disney stated, “Marvel assigned Lieber stories to write, had the right to exercise control over Lieber’s contributions and paid Lieber a per-page rate for his contributions,” per theTimes.
Such conditions would make his contributions “work made for hire, to which the Copyright Act’s provisions do not apply,” the complaint reads.
Toberoff’s clients could receive “a portion of profits” from new Marvel works based on copyrighted material if they are successful in their termination notices, according to theTimes.
source: people.com
