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UPDATED: Siegel lawyer, Captain America help Lassie come home

By Jeff Trexler on July 11, 2008 9:30 PM | | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm in the midst of a dreaded deadline doom, so no time for substantial comment except to note that Marc Toberoff, the Siegel family's lawyer, has just won another major copyright termination case.  The property:  Lassie.  The issue: whether a prior re-grant of rights can extinguish termination rights.  You can read the opinion here; Nikki Finke offers this summary.

Of additional interest to readers of this site who like comics: in assessing the state of the law, this Ninth Circuit appellate court opinion (p. 8540) cites as an analogous Second Circuit appellate court decision, Marvel Characters v. Simon, arising out of Joe Simon's effort to regain Captain America, which ultimately ended in a settlement.  Like the Lassie case, the Simon decision involved a previous contactual agreement that could have voided termination rights--in particular, by reclassifying Simon's Captain America work as work-for-hire. 

It's the second prominent bit of news re creators' heirs over the past couple weeks.  In the U.K., Damien Hirst led more than 500 artists & artists' families in calling for heirs to get royalties for the resale of works of art. Here's a key passage that resonates with why heirs have termination rights in the U.S.:

Our loved ones often sacrifice a lot to support the artist in the family. When it comes to the inheritance of a legacy, ensuring the preservation of works, operating charitable trusts and investing in British artists of the future are just some of the activities undertaken by heirs, often at considerable expense. The royalties arising from the resale right will help fund these projects.

We should be entitled to bequeath our intellectual property – the value of our life's work – to our families.

UPDATE:

This morning I received an excellent question from Michael Grabois re the effect of the Lassie case on the Siegel lawsuits.  Here's my answer, brewed along with my morning tea:  

While Lassie & the Siegel Superboy/Superman cases both involve the same termination rights, they don't raise precisely the same issues.  The Lassie case focused on the question of whether a pre-termination re-grant can extinguish the termination right.  The Siegel cases raise a number of other issues, with a focus primarily on the nature of the work and the initial sales.
 
Still, there is something of a connection.  You might remember in the Superman opinion that there's a part (pp. 50-53) where the judge deals with the effect of the 1975 settlement agreement, which included payments to Joanne Siegel.  Time Warner (+ DC, etc.) wanted the court to recognize that her continued acceptance of payments under the 1975 agreement after the disputed termination date served as a de facto post-termination acceptance of a grant of the copyright made in that agreement, in effect thereby ceding the rights back to Time Warner in a valid post-termination settlement.
 
It's not quite the same issue as in the Lassie case, which addressed whether a pre-termination agreement could include the sale of one's termination rights.  Nonetheless, the Time Warner argument did raise the issue of the nature of the 1975 settlement agreement, which Time Warner characterized as a grant of copyright.  If the judge had agreed with Time Warner the Lassie case might have raised substantial questions for his ruling, since the Lassie case arguably establishes that a pre-termination agreement arguably should not be a valid means to void the termination right. 
 
However, that's not how the Seigel judge ruled.  Instead, the judge determined that the 1975 agreement did not constitute a grant of copyright, but was a "voluntary" act in recognition of Siegel and Shuster's "past services."  In this way the judge circumvents the Lassie issue altogether--there was no grant agreement, which means the Lassie issue doesn't apply.
 
It's an example of the crucial role that definition plays in legal analysis.  Language matters; description matters; a case can turn on a word.
 
And with that, back to work!

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