Slashdot Mirror
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.
I'm happy to see that he's being compensated, albeit after a bit too much time.
Maybe now he can stop hanging out at The Android's Dungeon.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I thought there was no such thing as intellectual property according to 90% of the people here. So this is a bad thing right? Or is it only OK when you download Mp3s and movies?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Wasn't Jack Kirby in a similar situation with Stan many years ago?
For the cheezy animated Spidey series from years back? Or the made for TV movies?
I supposed he's a true believer now!
Somewhere in a NYC bank, his account manager's Spidey Sense is tingling!
Congratulations, Stan. This is long overdue.
fnord.
There was a similar story a little while ago on /. about the japanese gentleman who got very little out of inventing the blue LED's. several people commented that this wouldnt fly in other countries. I think this goes to show that at least in the USA we belive in giving people thier due for works of genius.
"I am very gratified by the judge's decision, although, since I am deeply fond of Marvel and the people there, I sincerely regret that this situation had to come to this," Lee told the Hollywood Reporter.
He then shouted, "Excelsior!" and flew away.
Good call from the court.
He filed the lawsuit in November 2002, pointing out a clause in his contract that entitled him to 10 percent of TV, movie and merchandising deals, an amount he thought was significantly higher than the $1 million-per-year salary he currently receives. Marvel tried to find a loophole in the wording.
Seems like a no-brainer. It was in the contract, Marvel tried to finangle their way out of it, and they failed. Good show, I must say. Good for him for staking out the claim, and calling Marvel on their unethical business practices.
So, bottom line, everything aside: it was in his contract, so I don't see how Marvel can appeal. They keep their merchandising revenue anyways.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
What about the co-creator, Steve Ditko? Where's his payday?
Speak truth to power.
Stan Lee: "You don't want a Batman toy. You want something more dignified. Like this big wad of money."
Boy: "Ahh, but only Batman can fit in my Batmobile."
Stan Lee: "This big wad of money can fit too."
(breaks the car by forcing in big wad of money.)
Stan Lee: "See? It's fitting already."
Boy: "Ahh, you broke my Batmobile."
Stan Lee: "Broke? Or made it better?"
Interesting that years back Marvel was on the verge of bankruptcy. This may put them there again.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He'd better invest in some auditing. You know the studios will cook the books with all sorts of extra "fees" for stuff that has no value, reducing the bottom line.
Just like record production companies hire all sorts of expensive behind the scenes "help", reducing the amount of profit that is applied against the artist's advance.
Just a little question: Does the idea of "Spiderman" count as intellectual property? Or does that theory not cross over into comic book ideas?
I know intuitively it feels that you should be able to get paid back for an idea like Spiderman, and that you shouldn't be able to patent something like "The Desktop," but can anyone draw a line in the sand on this?
Thank God for evolution.
So when does Kirby's widow get her cut?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
So I hope that Stan Lee gets his cut from the gross take, and nothing else.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Lawyer Man, Lawyer Man
Get's the biggest settlement that he can
Sues a company, any size
Get's cash and a a new ride
Look out, here comes the Lawyer Man
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Never ask for points on the profits. No movie has ever made a profit.
Of course movies make profits. But where those profits are buried in the accountancy, nobody will fess up lightly. I hope Stan Lee has an ironclad judgement that can't be wiggled out with some fancy bookwork.
[
Just a thought.
I boycott signatures
With a great Power... come$ a great re$pon$ibility.
None os this has anything to do with "giving a man his due".
If Stan Lee was just a normal guy, paid to do a 9-5 job, and came up with some invention on company time, told his boss to get brownie points, and they never gave him any money, then screw him. He was doing a job he was paid for. I certainly do not sympathize with these whiny babies at all - I certainly do not expect a huge portion of the company's profits for the software I write.
The article clearly states that Lee had a clause ***in his contract*** that said he gets 10 percent. The very fact that Marvel fought him on this is immoral IMO. The contract says what it says - pay up Marvel.
Movie Studios are very, very good at hiding profits. Most people that have earned it, get a percentage of the gross, as getting a percentage of net profits can wind up being nothing. Winston Groom, who wrote Forrest Gump, was promised 5% of the net profits, if I recall correctly, and wound up getting almost nothing since Fox said the picture made no money in theaters (despite taking in around $300 million in the USA alone). So, he might have won in court, but with some creative accounting, he might not make too much money in the end.
But Marvel will appeal.
The whole point here is to try and run-out-the-clock on Stan Lee. The guys in his 80s. They're hoping he'll just go ahead and die before they have to pay. If he did die, does Marvel then owe Lee's children (does he have any?)
Insurance companies view this as a legit business practice. They'll often sit on someone's benefits, and make them jump through as many legal hoops as possible, if they know they have a terminal disease, or are otherwise close to death.
At any rate, we can all agree that Spiderman sucks.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Batman is DC.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You're making me Ang Lee. You wouldn't like me when I'm Ang Lee.
This flies in the face of science.
Hey, want to help me build a rocket? All I need is a little cash...
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
For the real story:
http://www.ditko.comics.org/ditko.html
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Now Stan Lee can spend his money to develop what he always wanted - an underground lair to fight crime from, complete with cool car, neat gadgets, and a butler to watch out for him.
Oh. Wait. Maybe that's someone else.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
> Just like record production companies hire all
> sorts of expensive behind the scenes "help",
> reducing the amount of profit that is applied
> against the artist's advance.
But that's okay, because the record companies are saving the artists from evil P2P pirates. Nothing big pirates hate more than little pirates squeezing in on their business.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Their heirs should get what is due as well. After all, they actually visualize all the bloody characters in the first place.
A big-screen version of another Marvel favorite, Iron Man, is also in the works. Will they get Ozzy to play Iron Man? Heavy boots of lead Fills his victims full of dread Running as fast as they can Iron man lives again!
I would think that any settlements would go into his estate, and be disbursed according to the will.
Don't pick up the pho*(@)$*@&@!@ NO CARRIER
What if someone has been using voodoo to turn him into a Zombie? Besides, other dead guys (like Elvis) appear in supermarkets all the time.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
the BBC article can be found here
Enjoy an e-piphany
This is why actors/producers/writers should demand percentages of gross sales, not profits. You see the sales numbers publicly released, while profits aren't. The sales numbers are verifiable.
Stan Lee sues the simpsons... says Comic Book Guy is offensive to "guys like Stan Lee". ... worst joke _ever_
An observant reader writes in suggesting that perhaps Marvel is correct about not paying Stan Lee his 10% citing Issue 299 of the Fantastic Four where Dr. Doom destroyed the time continuum of the year during which Stan Lee retired, thereby nullifying his contract. While he get a No-Prize for his efforts another valiant reader mentions that perhaps Stan Lee will be triumphant because he is in fact Captain Marvel, to which we reply: Captain Marvel is dead.
Nuff said.
I am a big marvel comics fan. I grew up on Marvel. It turns my stomache that the greedy corporate *&*% would even consider doing such a thing to the creator of what is putting food on all their tables.
I say we start some kind of slashdot campaign to boycot all marvel movies and merchandise until Lee gets his due. And they better retract the appeal.
I dont know if I can sit through a movie and enjoy "heroics" when i know it had been produced by a most vile bunch of villains.
It all depends on what exactly he signed for- net poitns or gross points. If he signed for a percentage of the net, he is absolutely screwed. Films don't often make net profits. You're right- Hollywood accounting is remarkable. Remeber the story of Art Buchwald- he got 2 net points on "Coming to America," won his case, and saw nothing.
If you ever, ever, sign for anything, sign for gross points. 10% of a $250,000,000 then is $25,000,000. Much better numbers.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
You're being very squirrely here.
If you say, "Do you believe in intellectual property?", you'll get set of answers.
If you say, "Do you believe in copyright," you'll get another set of answers.
They aren't the same thing, although some people try to take the generlaly broad support that copyright has and smear it over a whole bunch of other things, using the rubric "intellectual property". For one thing, the very term itself tries to define the terms of the debate -- a sure sign of intellectual dishonesty. I can believe that creators should be able to receive an alienable (that is to say sellable) monopoly over the economic proceeds from their work without believing that this is a form of property in the same sense a deed to a piece of land is. I refer you to my K5 article on Lord Macaulay's classic speech before Parliament on copyright extension if you need this distinction explained.
Finally, the question should be "Should a corporation be able to use accounting gimmicks to cheat another party out of the proceeds guaranteed under a contract?" I don't think you'll get many people for that.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"Their Land Sharks, Our Rights Protector?"
aka
"Their Terrorists, Our Freedom Fighters..."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I guess this means that Marvel will have to declare bankruptcy... again.
-m
Stan Lee is seemingly one of the nicest guys in the comic industry all around. Not to mention he's put so much into what he has done, with obvious enjoyment in his work. It doesn't seem to have gotten tedious for him, as you can see in all the interviews he does for the special edition DVDs of the many Marvel movies. I'm glad he will get proper compensation for all of his efforts. Check out his interviews on the Spidey DVDs and also the Comic Book Heros Unmasked
Ya know what they say, debt is an asset.
Final judgement.. -1 zillion bucks!
Thing is, he sued Marvel, he's entitled to 10% of whatever Marvel charged the movie folks for the rights to make spiderman, not 10% of what the movie made.
Paramount (or whoever) aren't even defendants in this suit, IIRC.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
I loved that scene. Can't seem to remember which episode it's in though. Exelcior!
AnimeNEXT anime convention
But he's suing *Marvel*, not the movie companies. Marvel simply gets a bag of cash (no expenses for letting others use your source material). And I assume that Marvel has a better ability to make sure the actually get what they deserve.
Completely correct- but the difference between IP and copyright is getting degraded over time. Originally- copyright was artist only, giving him a set of rights he could license (but retained ownership of) for 24 years, after which the work passed into the public domain. Then it went to 27 years. Then it became inheritable. Then corporations were able to buy ownership of copyright. Then it went to 50 years. Then to 75 years. Now it's 97 years and still being extended...at some point copyright becomes as evil as the idea of permanent patents.....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
His contract is with Marvel, not the movie studio, so he get's 10% of Marvel's profits from the deal and the article states Marvel has already collected $50 million on the first movie alone. Marvel just licensed the use of the Spiderman character to the movie studio, i.e. Marvel's take is all pure profit and I'm sure Marvel's lawyers made sure Marvel wouldn't get screwed on their cut from the movie studio.
What about the other movies that Stan's had a hand in? I'm fairly certain he had a huge hand in the creation of the Fantastic Four which should be released in a few months. And what about Daredevil and Elektra?
AnimeNEXT anime convention
After Enron and other corporate scandals, more than twice as many public companies have had to restate their earnings. In this case, restating earnings may help them avoid as big of payout.
So many of the rest of the real innovators in comics never got a true slice of the wild cash their creations produced. Siegel and Shuster got a pittance for Superman, and their story is far more the normal than Stan Lee's. It is the creative spark that should really reap the lion's share of the rewards in an endeavor, and not the marketing machine that grinds it away after the truly unique work is done.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a fictional biographic account of two cousins riding the wave of comics. It won a Pulitzer, and is a fascinating, engaging tour through the history of comics and their role in society. It was reviewed on Slashdot about a year and a half ago, but since the story seems so relevant to Stan Lee's victory here I thought it was worth a mention.
Spider-Man in a giant robot, folks. I kid you not.
I was boggled to see, while paging through a booklet of grocery coupons in the Sunday paper, an advert for Huggies or some-such which were stamped with an image of a puffy, babyish Spidey.
Man, what a ignoble job for your friendly nieghborhood Spiderman! ("Bad boy Timothy! Peter Parker would never shit himself!")
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.
Stephen King tried it and it was an utter success would be more like it. What he did was simply ask people to pay rather than require them to, and ended up raking in 70% of all the downloads as *payed*. This fell to 46% when he jacked the price to 2$.. a *chapter*.
I don't know about you, but if I put a PDF file online and say, "hey, I can't force you to, but I'm going to require you to put a buck in my hat for a download" and 70% of the people pay I consider it a roaring success.
And that was at a buck a chapter. The book (would've) went for like 10 bucks total.. for a PDF! And then he's got the gaul to say that it's a failure and that any smaller time writer wouldn't be able to make money. Gimmee a break!
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
Story that the figures are from. Forgot to include it in the parent.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
It is funny that they seem to have a better strangle hold over the governments that even Microsoft. I mean let us be honest. If NBC or Viacom went out of business what harm would it do? The US might loose it's edge in really bland entertainment?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
He didn't win a judgment against the movie studios, he won against Marvel. The movie studios pay Marvel and they were supposed to give Stan Lee 10% of that. You can hide all kinds of costs in the making and marketing of a movie, but when you're a company that's just collecting licensing fees for your characters, it's a lot more difficult.
spidey 1 and 2 have grossed over 700 million so far..
:D
too bad he's not getting 10% of the net or he would have > 70 mil
Dude, I saw him at the mall. He was over by that place where that local-access TV station was doing a dating game ripoff show.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Stan Lee has had a "10% of profits from everything" with Marvel for years. In the past, it hasn't been such a problem, but now they are trying to play the "we don't make any money on it" game. That shit is, apparantly, not going to fly as per the court ruling.
You may be able to get away with it for low-paid writers who sign a new contract and don't know how it works, much harder to get away with it on someone who has a lot of disposable income and a contract that predates all the BS, and is larger than one film.
My bet? It takes a couple more years with appeals, but he (or his heirs) get the cash.
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
I don't know why parent is modded as Funny. It's actually insightful. The MPAA and RIAA have single-handedly destroyed copyright law in this country, impinged on fair-use, and hampered technological progress. I would venture to say the only lobbying group that has a bigger hold on the U.S. government is the military-industrial complex.
Pretty much every other comment here seems to think the RIAA or Hollywood has something to do with this, but they don't. This is between Marvel and Stan Lee. IF Marvel has a percentage of the Movie Gross, THEN Stan gets 10% of that. But Marvel may have sold the movie right for a flat fee for all we know.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I think it would be neat if Stan would give a monster chunk of that money to the CBLDF.
I mean, Stan already gets $1 mil/year from Marvel. The guy's richer than hell. He could make a big donation and drum up a lot of press, and CBLDF could probably use the publicity.
Check out their site. If you like the First Amendment, you'll like this organization.
And if this doesn't outrage you, nothing will. Freedom lost that one.
My stupid web site
The US might loose it's edge in really bland entertainment?
I blame them for all the spelling mistakes we see on the web Without TV, we'd resort to reading, so we'd probably have a higher standard of literacy here.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
How about the run on sentences? Are those Hollywood's fault too?
and a few other sites has some good takes on the case:
The best of the lot is The Comics reporter at the Pulse
And little btis more or links:
The Comics Reporter
The Beat
I blame them for all the spelling mistakes we see on the web Without TV, we'd resort to reading, so we'd probably have a higher standard of literacy here.
I also blame punctuation mistakes on the television.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
It's spelled "lose." Also, "its" is correct for possessive, "it's" means "it is," which would be incorrect here.
Call the musicians stupid all you want, but when a label is dangling the carrot, what leverage do they really have? Can they really say "this contract isn't fair and we'd like this this and this changed"? No. You know why? Cuz the label will say "take it or leave it". And that musician will go on to remain obscure and poor.
Like I said in another post, if they have the "get rich and famous" goal, then signing with a big label is one of the few ways of achieving it.
But I _DON'T_ want to hear them whine and complain about how they're getting fucked by the label when shit doesn't go well for them.
It's not up to the label to provide a fair contract to benefit the musician. They are in the BUSINESS of MAKING MONEY. If you want to do a deal with them, and you are the huge underdog with no leverage, then you are going to have to settle for what they offer, and have no basis whatsoever to bitch and complain about it.
This over-inflated sense of self-entitlement is really annoying.
Want leverage? Then be GOOD at what you do, and shop around to multiple labels. Get them to fight to get you. It worked for Trent Reznor and Creed, to name but a few.
If you're a mediocre band from a mediocre place, and only one label is interested in you, then that speaks volumes.
Or, if you ARE good, and jump on the first offer to come your way, then you ARE STUPID.
Once again, it is the music BUSINESS, with all the facets of "normal" business, including negotiating contracts.
$0.02 (CDN)
Personally, I pay for music to support the artist in their efforts.
If they are part of the "big label" scene, then the sale usually helps to pay off their debt to the label. Sure, the **AA or label gets a huge percentage of the cash, but that's the deal the artist signed.
I also prefer to help the local artist who takes that $10 for the CD and buys new strings for his guitar, or puts it toward producing more CD's, etc.
$0.02 (CDN)
See here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=136636&cid=114 13880. I put the story there because I didn't want to wait to see if the editors would accept it. Scoop! :)
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
Holy shit, I just solved the creative world's woes. Call me 'DUH!-Man'. Next!
(Flies off to solve world hunger.)
You must think in Russian.
It's okay to prey on the innocent, those hopeful souls of creativity who believe they have been "discovered", only to have their dreams and wallet shattered by manipulation, deception, greed and indifference.
...
It's okay to be evil in today's world, because capitalism is essentially evil. You are only to take care of yourself, and in the process you should fuck over everybody that trusts you.
Because it makes you rich, if you're lucky, and if you're really smart, you'll at least be covered legally.
It's valid, because you can make money that way.
You are stupid for letting this opportunity let go.
I will make the bucks, stupid people like you just don't see it.
Smart people like me will get rich.
Yeah, you're really stupid. How easy you were fooled.
YOU deserved it, because you were stupid..
I feel genuinely sorry for you and how you let the worldly glitz deceieve your wisdom and perception. Just continue to justify it, Truth will shatter it and cast light on Everything in time.
I don't remember who, but I think some Indian stated something to the effect of the written word being the worst enemy of Man. How else can you really fuck somebody over, than with a written contract, a cold heart and a cold legal system?
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Then it gets potentially worse for pooe Stan. If Marvel (and I hope they didn't do this) signed for net they got screwed too.
You would also be amazed by the accounting practices that the studios use to fracture profit.
My personal favorite? Include promotion in your gross costs to make the film. Of course, you must pay for promotion. Who does the promotion? The inhouse promotion department that bills the film budget, thereby knocking down the take while actually banking the profit. They do it all the time.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Just an observation off the top100 list. In the 3 LotR movies, each movie made more than the previous.... while with Harry potter it is the opposite, each made less than the previous.
I farted
Hi, it's Spidey again. Sorry about the fist movie. You know what? I should just bang that chick. I realize I had some issues before, because when you dress up in a costume all the time, like George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier, it means you're gay. But none of that matters because there was this fat fuck who looks like Emeril, only more annoying, and he's the only fat physicist in the entire history of physics, and my cheerleader girlfriend is getting it from the star quarterback so I'm gonna go cry to my mom about the time me and dad were getting donuts and these guys came up to us and they were like "you're dead whitey" and I was like "no!" only in slow-motion and they were all "you'll thank us for this later kid" and then I finally kissed a girl for the first time in my life and I soiled my costume. Fin. Also something about an evil walrus or something.
The MPAA and RIAA serve the vital purpose of distracting citizens from what the government is doing. That gives them an extremely high priority in DC.
And BTW, how do you put example HTML so that it displays as inline text instead of actual markup?
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Nobody will read this as I'm posting this way too late, but anyway...
NBC and Viacom are part of the "Society of the Spectacle" that we have created for ourselves (read Guy Debord's manifesto for more), and as such can be viewed as very important tools for any government to keep us happily servile and uncritical. "Bread and games!" to rule the people, as the Romans would have said.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
If you want to kill Stan Lee, Make him a sidekick to a far more popular hero... Like Stephen Spielberg or The Green Arrow. Make him that character's reason to live. Let the audience grow to like him and take comfort in him. Then wait for writers to run out of ideas.
Just hope he doesn't get resurrected again and again. Darkwing my ass!
The ______ Agenda
Internet distribution isnt the problem here, the problem is, it costs millions of dollars to make a movie, so the only people who can are the ones who have the millions of dollars. These same people make even more money and are still the only ones who can make these huge movies.
Distribution companies worry me a lot less than the companies that fund the movies in the first place. Its easy to overcome distribution problems compared to overcoming advertising costs, CGI costs, actors pay, hell even the recording media and cameras cost more than most people reading these articles will make in a lifetime.
Excelent use of a distracting sound-bite...
The MP3 "sharers" asside for now, the general slashdot consensus on Intellectual Property is that there should be no software patents and Copyright should exist for an actually limited "limited time".
Translated to this circumstance Stan Lee isn't suing the maker of X-Men or The Incredibles for using his intellectual property right to "a method for portraying an individual with paranormal or 'super' abilities in media." That is, he doesn't claim to "own" the _idea_ of superheros.
He does however have a Copyright stake in the spesific copyrightable Spiderman and Hulk characters themselves. And he has a _contract_ where his business associates agreed to pay him in exchange for his copyright stake.
He _isn't_ however trying to make Xerox machines refuse to copy pages from his commic books, nor is he suing people who went out and got ro gave Spiderman tatoos. None of the parties are trying to enjoin everyone everywhere from using sipder-web imagery in thier art. Stan isn't suing people trying to get them to stop fair-using frames or samples or whatever.
And "copyright", and indeed "patents" and "trademarks" ARE NOT "PROPERTY" by any meaningful measure of that word. The is the same, simple, easy to understand concept as the statement "'murder' is not 'theft'". So while Stan has a copyright stake, and he is asserting same, that has nothing to do with the non-existence of "intellectual property".
And as for the "sharers", that isn't always all that black and white either, even if we mostly can agree that some people will "share" no matter what, while most people just want honest value for their money when they "buy".
And *none* of these issues are as simple as your "insightful" troll would like them to appear. You re guilty of unbrainmanlike conduct and deserve a two-liberty penalty... 8-)
God save us all from doofus engendered sound bites...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I like the logic that a movie that is high grossing has profit.
if a movie was made for 2 billion and grossed 2.5 billion it would be the highest grossing movie, but it certainly doesn't there was a profit.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Stan is awesome.
He isn't part of an ilk.
It's when the money was made.
Stan was smart and signed this before the Spiderman and XMen franchises took off. He will earn a bundle for this.
Good, now maybe he can decide to stop being an a**hole and leave Cryptic alone.
Stan - how's Jack Kirby doing? You going to be sharing any of that moola with his estate? I'm sure you will because it's the "right" thing to do, right?
-Styopa
I think stan sued them not because he's broke, but because they were violating thier contract to him.. it was a principal thing.. marvel probably got screwed on thier movie deals though (50 mil on a movie that did $800,000,000 world wide? seems a bit low to me)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
50,000,000 million on an $800,000,000? Marvel actually made out fairly well- that's a bit over 6 gross points. There are only so many pieces of the pie to go around. Now, 10% of that is $5,000,000. That's what Stan is owed (if his contract calls for 10% of Marvel's gross profits.) Now, if Marvel has cooked the books, his numbers go down.
Don't you love the entertainment business?
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
Clothes used to role-play.
In that case, any work uniform, even the executive uniform of a suit and tie, could be taken as a "costume", because one plays a role on the job.
Permanent copyright is actually much worse than permanent patents.
Permanent patents woudl simply stop the progress of invention, as it becomes nearly impossible to create anything that doesn't potentially infringe on some patent in some way (which is ENTIRELY different than saying that there's nothing new to be invented; quite the contrary).
As bad as this would be, permanent copyrights would be even worse. While patents are for ideas and copyrights are for expression, generally speaking I am free to use an artifact that is covered by a patent any way I wish to. My use of copyrighted material is much more limited, because the most natural way to use the material is to incorporate it into my own expression.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't know why parent is modded as Funny
Probably the only words read by the moderators were the small ones at the beginning. "It is funny..."
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!