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Stan Lee to be Paid Millions for Spidey
Soldrinero writes "After a tough legal battle that began in 2002 (mentioned in a previous Slashdot story), Stan Lee will finally get his due. A recent court decision says that Marvel owes Lee 10% of their profits for works based on his creations. Since three recent Marvel-based movies are in the all-time top 100 for box-office gross, this will be a sizable chunk of change."
The contract stated that Lee would get 'him to 10 percent of TV, movie and merchandising deals'. **AA can't use only the laws it likes; I just wish more actors would (could) go freelance and rid us of this type of cancer. If more people had similar clauses then it would be more cost effective to cut out the middleman and figure out someway to produce entertainment material on their own - visionary may be seeing some kind of internet distribution system for just a mere fraction of the cost of big name distributors. This won't happen anytime soon because Stephen King tried it already and it didn't work but he was a visionary and one day it will work.
Wasn't Jack Kirby in a similar situation with Stan many years ago?
What about the co-creator, Steve Ditko? Where's his payday?
Speak truth to power.
But if Marvel appeals, it could still take a bit longer. And given Stan Lee's age (82) he might not last as long as the lawsuit might. What happens if he passes away? Does the lawsuit drop? If he wins, does the money go to the people in his will?
Will Marvel hire an assassin to end the lawsuit?
So when does Kirby's widow get her cut?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
... and pay to have those creations made, and cover the costs involved in marketing, selling and sistributing those creations.
MPAA maybe, but most members of the RIAA just "lend" the artist the money to create and promote their work and then collect it back after they sell records.... If the artist doesn't the artist owes. I know more then one artists getting fucked this way.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I'm not saying that what they do has no value. I just question a legal system that winds up giving more rights to the people behind the marketing than the people behind the creating.
Copyright was created to encourage creation, not to encourage marketing.
And before you say "nobody forced them to sign away their rights" realize that the **AAs have created an environment that makes it difficult to make it on your own. As an example, payola to radio stations is illegal, and yet it continues unabated.
I personally don't like Scrooge McDuck's golden rule: "He who has the gold, makes the rules."
Seems odd he wouldn't get paid his due, considering the cameos he's made in Marvel movies.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
It seems like Marvel is the SCO of the comic book industry. Let's hope their lawsuit against NCSoft and Cryptic Studios, makers of City of Heroes, goes just as poorly.
I just love some of the quotes by Marvel.
Considering that defendants own no comic characters themselves, it stands to reason that the comic books to which they refer are those that depict the characters of Marvel and others," wrote Marvel's attorneys in the complaint.
I'm sorry, but they do, in fact, publish their own comic. In fact, due to the bundling with the game, I believe I read it had the 3rd highest circulation of any comic in print.
The complaint says that the "defendants have created, marketed, distributed and provided a host environment for a game that 'brings the world of comic books alive,' not by the creation of new or original characters but, instead, by directly, contributorily and vicariously infringing upon Marvel copyrights and trademarks."
There are typically around 1500-2500 players on Virtue every night, it seems. I almost never see a copycat.
A great quote from Cory Doctorow:
"Asking City of Heroes to police their users to ensure that they don't replicate Marvel characters is like asking a school to police its students to make sure none of them show up for Halloween in a homemade Spider-Man costume," said Cory Doctorow, a renowned writer and advocate for free speech and fair use. "It's unreasonable bullying, and it is bad corporate citizenship."
And of course, it's a click away to report a copycat character, and NCSoft removes them rapidly.
Yeah, Lee is a creative genius - not. Stan Lee was merely the relative of the publisher. It's good to have friends in high places.
The most obvious proof of this is a superficial glance at his career. When he's working with people like Ditko and Kirby, he's nothing short of a genius. On the other hand, when he "creates" on his own, he comes up with... "She-Hulk" (or Stripperella). Few people ever bother to make that correlation.
I worked on a project a few years ago that was nominated for an Eisner. We were a complete longshot, since the publishing run was smaller than the voting body, but someone asked if what we'd say if we won. My suggestion that "it's an honor to accept an award from one of the few people to have emerged from the Golden Age of Comics without Stan Lee's cock in their ass" struck them as being a tad excessive. But it would have been a nice sentiment.
Now Will's left the building. Kirby's gone. Ditko's gone off the deepend. And we're left left with Stan.
Sigh...
Well, he signed on the profits Marvel raked in, not the movie studios... They studios had to 'buy' the rights to make the movie, and if they didn't make a profit at the box office they were hosed. but with $2,700,000,000. in gross raked in by the movie studios for daredevil, spiderman 1 and 2, xmen 1 and 2, and the incredible hulk... well, that's an incredible hulk of cash... supposedly marvel got 50 mil for spiderman 1... who's worldwide sales were $800,000,000 so likely he'll get 15 million on the estimated 150 million marvel collected in royalties... ;) and selling rights to movies has always been a guarenteed profit business.
Remember marvel diesn't actually make the movies, they just sell the rights
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html