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Warner Bros Secures Commercial Control of Superman

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday January 13, 2013 @05:55AM from the faster-than-a-speeding-cease-and-desist dept.

AliasMarlowe writes "Warner Bros have won an important legal victory over the heirs of one of the creators of Superman, giving it total commercial control of the superhero. An appeals panel unanimously ruled that Jerome Siegel's heirs must abide by a 2001 letter accepting Warner's offer for their 50% share of Superman. The letter was never formally turned into a contract, but the Judge considered that it represented an oral agreement, which was binding. Warner Brothers now owns 100% of the Superman franchise."

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Just imagine if copyright had reasonable limits by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-13 06:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Then all this arguing would've been for nothing.
1. Re:Just imagine if copyright had reasonable limits by just_a_monkey · 2013-01-13 06:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Fans could not be sure that the movie that they were going to see was the "official" Superman
  The... The horror!
  
  --
  How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
2. Re:Just imagine if copyright had reasonable limits by kwerle · 2013-01-13 06:45 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Disagree. After a reasonable time, it should pass into the public domain. Anyone should be able to make a superman movie, comic, etc.
  Hell, look how many "reboots" comics and sci-fi have recently received. Anyone should be able to reboot (or stick to the original) after things pass into PD - and things should pass.
Re:Public domain by erroneus · 2013-01-13 07:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have heard many times "...a superman..." used in a context which does not have anything to do with the character Superman. Depending on the context, it is a part of the English language.