Kirby Heirs Lose Appeal Against Marvel Comics - Page 3

One Above All · 11-01-2014, 01:38 AM

am I right to believe Jack's heirs received a lot of money?

I wonder how much money

so now all the characters that Jack created belong to his heirs?

**Bullseye** · 11-01-2014, 05:34 AM

Obviously not enough. It is not just with Jacks family but the level of entitlement amount kids and what they expect to get from their parents is shocking. Get out and make your own wealth.

JP Sarri · 11-01-2014, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Obviously not enough. It is not just with Jacks family but the level of entitlement amount kids and what they expect to get from their parents is shocking. Get out and make your own wealth.

Exactly.

ftrez · 11-03-2014, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Obviously not enough. It is not just with Jacks family but the level of entitlement amount kids and what they expect to get from their parents is shocking. Get out and make your own wealth.

Do people say the same about Bill Gates', Steve Jobs', or Nelson Rockefeller's heirs?

These and other people have made their fortunes with the intent of supporting their family. From everything I've ever read or been told about Jack Kirby, supporting his family was his paramount goal. And he worked his ass off to do it. I'll say he did as much to build Marvel into what it is today as Jobs did to build up Apple.

Looking at some of the copyright laws and the intentions of their writers, it looks like there is some basis to the Kirby's claims. My biggest sticking point is that Marvel put up all of the money and took all of the risk in building and protecting the brand. But that doesn't change copyright law. At the end of the day, I hope they got some compensation and that Jack gets the credit he's due.

**Bullseye** · 11-03-2014, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ftrez

Do people say the same about Bill Gates', Steve Jobs', or Nelson Rockefeller's heirs?

These and other people have made their fortunes with the intent of supporting their family. From everything I've ever read or been told about Jack Kirby, supporting his family was his paramount goal. And he worked his ass off to do it. I'll say he did as much to build Marvel into what it is today as Jobs did to build up Apple.

Looking at some of the copyright laws and the intentions of their writers, it looks like there is some basis to the Kirby's claims. My biggest sticking point is that Marvel put up all of the money and took all of the risk in building and protecting the brand. But that doesn't change copyright law. At the end of the day, I hope they got some compensation and that Jack gets the credit he's due.

Do you think Jonathan Ive will have a case against Apple in the future? Most people don't even know who he is yet he has a much greater impact on society than Jack Kirby.

ftrez · 11-03-2014, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Do you think Jonathan Ive will have a case against Apple in the future? Most people don't even know who he is yet he has a much greater impact on society than Jack Kirby.

But the question isn't societal impact. It's copyright law. I don't expect Ive or his heirs will have a case against Apple. Apples and oranges as they say. I also expect that Ive's relationship and compensation with Apple are substantially incomparable to Kirby's at Marvel. Ive runs his own laboratory at Apple, he oversees the work of his appointed design team, and he is the only Apple designer with a private office. He is treated substantially better than other designers. This isn't anything like Kirby's experience.

Do you think that Doubleday and Warner Brothers should get all of the money and credit for Stephen King's The Shining because they published the book and released the movie, respectively? King got paid when he wrote the book so why does he, and after his death, his heirs, deserve any money for continued reprints and DVD sales, etc?

**Bullseye** · 11-03-2014, 08:01 PM

Both work for a company and their creations belong to the parent company unless otherwise agreed. Whether Kirby was farely treated by Marvel while working with them is another question. I suspect not but then again they were almost bankrupt in the 80's.

ftrez · 11-03-2014, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Both work for a company and their creations belong to the parent company unless otherwise agreed. Whether Kirby was farely treated by Marvel while working with them is another question. I suspect not but then again they were almost bankrupt in the 80's.

But your paralleling literary creation w/ mechanical creation. My Stephen King analogy isn't spot on, but it's much closer.

As far as the fairness with which Kirby was treated goes, it's somewhat arguable. One the one hand, he agreed to the wage that he was paid. So there's that. Also, in the early days of Marvel he certainly didn't want for assignments. The thing that stands out though, is that when Marvel started returning pages to the artists they treated Kirby much different than any other artist. There were other examples to but this one relates directly to the issue at hand and Marvel's preemptive attempt to avoid any future issues with the copyrights. They could interpret the law at that time and were afraid of it's future consequences. Here's some comments directly from Kirby:

JACK KIRBY: What happened was that Marvel decided to return the pages to the artists, and they sent the releases out to the various artists that did work for them over the years. My release was quite different than the others. It was a release I couldn't sign, and that created a controversy. It mystified me; I don't know why I got this kind of a release. It was a four-page release; it was almost like a contract, whereas the average release was something I could sign. I would've signed it, and there would have been an ordinary exchange of release and pages. They created a situation in which I was stuck; it became a legal thing, and I'm sorry about the circumstance itself - but it was they who sent the release out, and it was I who can't sign it. So they kept my pages.

Here's more info for the uninformed and interested: http://www.tcj.com/kirby-and-goliath...arvel-artwork/

I'm no lawyer myself, I just know that I'd want my kids/heirs to be taken care of by the toils of my life.

**Bullseye** · 11-03-2014, 08:48 PM

But why is industrial design any less important? I think the parallels are fair. The heirs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have just lost a case in regards to the Sherlock Holmes stories which will remain in the public domain. Interesting times of late.

snappahead · 11-04-2014, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ftrez

Do people say the same about Bill Gates', Steve Jobs', or Nelson Rockefeller's heirs?

These and other people have made their fortunes with the intent of supporting their family. From everything I've ever read or been told about Jack Kirby, supporting his family was his paramount goal. And he worked his ass off to do it. I'll say he did as much to build Marvel into what it is today as Jobs did to build up Apple.

Looking at some of the copyright laws and the intentions of their writers, it looks like there is some basis to the Kirby's claims. My biggest sticking point is that Marvel put up all of the money and took all of the risk in building and protecting the brand. But that doesn't change copyright law. At the end of the day, I hope they got some compensation and that Jack gets the credit he's due.

Definitely. Jack would be very happy to know that all of his years of blood, sweat and tears benefited his children and his children's children. He was old school and a proud family man. Nothing meant more to him.