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Stan Lee Media and Disney Battle For Ownership of Marvel Characters
An anonymous reader writes "Stan Lee Media and The Walt Disney Co. have taken their arguments to the U.S. Court of Appeals over who owns the rights (and profits) to Marvel characters. Though Disney bought Marvel in 2009, Stan Lee Media (no longer associated with Stan Lee, himself) still claims copyright of the characters."
If I pay you to create something why would you own it? If you want to own your copyrights then don't sell them.
>If I pay you to create something why would you own it?
Millions of Americans who have professional wedding photos would like to know.
THAT is a huge scam.
Don't usually own the copyright to the code, when they are doing it for another company.
I get you aren't happy with the balance of power in this but remember the people who created those characters actually did give up their rights to them for payment. If you want to change the laws to give them greater protection consider you may actually be taking away their ability to sell their work and make a living.
Crucial distinction:
They lost rights to everything they came up with in perpetuity as a standard contract of their employment. I view such heavy handed contracts quite dimly as a result of unbalanced employment negotiation.
By that logic, the burger flipper at McDonald's should be able to pocket all the money McDonald's brings in.
Don't ignore the fact that the employee's contribution is only a small component to the success of the business. Just because someone comes up with cool superhero drawings doesn't mean he alone also brings those to market, negotiates comic book, movie, TV, and other licensing deals, creates the content and publishes that content, or any of the hundreds of other jobs that go into the production including managing payroll, paying bills, etc.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
My wife and I own the copyright to our wedding photos taken over 25 years ago and have the negatives. Nearly all of the photographers we talked to at the time were still in the old model where they owned the copyright -- especially the older ones. The younger ones were beginning to switch to the new model where the customer owns the copyright.
There are still numerous photographers that stick to the old model because they think it makes them more money. Kind of an interesting belief given the number of people who never have more prints made. Seems to me that you'd make more money just by charging extra for the negatives or digital files.
If you build your employer a piece of software that ends up making hundreds of millions of dollars wouldn't you feel entitled to some of that wealth?
No. You utilized their assets to build said software, charged them money, and agreed to it. Deal with it. Just because you lacked the vision to see that software making piles of cash, don't blame others because they have bigger vision then you do.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
In many cases the employees get a share of the wealth through stock options, RUS, stock purchase plans etc. If you want the whole pie then you should start your own company and work for yourself.