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[Thad]

Certainly on Spider-Man; Kirby repeatedly claimed credit for creating Spider-Man (and indeed that's part of this case), and Ditko really resented that.  He has every right to, honestly; Kirby had nothing to do with the Spider-Man who ultimately appeared on the page.

My understanding is that Ditko doesn't believe he has any claim on the Spider-Man copyrights but DOES believe he's owed tens of millions in royalties.  In this situation most creators (including Kirby) agreed to settle for some lump sum in exchange for giving away their claims for anything more.  Ditko has refused; he'd rather take nothing than sign a document saying he hasn't been wronged.

Basically I see him sitting down and corroborating Marvel's WFH claims but totally savaging their business practices and treatment of artists, and casting serious doubt on Stan Lee's claims about the creative process.

[Büge]

The legal battle between Warner Brothers and the Siegel/Shuster estates continues.

[Mongrel]

Microsoft loses the last appeal in the i4i case and must pay out just shy of 300 million for wilful and deliberate infringement.

[Thad]

Good.  A few more suits like that and maybe the multibillion-dollar corporations who write our copyright and patent laws will realize they've fucked themselves, not just us.

[Cthulhu-chan]

Wishful thinking, that.

[Thad]

Well, yes.

There IS a victory for the little guy in here: the opinion explicitly states that juries can consider information in lawsuits that the USPTO was unaware of when a patent was granted.  It's a long, LONG way from fixing our totally fucked-up patent system but it's one small step.

[Thad]

Kirbys lose.

Basically what happened here is that neither side kept good records and could produce strong evidence of its claim.  And since the Kirbys were the plaintiffs, they had the burden of proof -- which put them in the position of having to prove a negative (that Kirby's work wasn't for-hire).

[Thad]

Still chewing over the Kirby case.  Colleen Doran has a good summary, and a link to the complete decision.  I've made a couple updates to my form post and posted it angrily to the Comics Alliance comments section before deciding I need to steer clear of comments sections for awhile.

Except maybe Colleen Doran's.  And Steve Bissette's!  He's calling for a Marvel boycott.  Which is fair enough, as I can't really fault the judge's ruling but still think the whole situation stinks.  Maybe I won't go see Captain America after all.

Anyhow.  The Evanier and Morrow depositions were tossed out as hearsay, which sucks but which I can understand, I guess.  Lee's deposition, meanwhile, was treated as gospel, which is pretty infuriating; when a guy claims credit for making Thor the son of Odin, it's probably reasonable to think he may be exaggerating his contributions in other ways.


EDIT: Will be interesting to see what happens in a decade or so when Jack's DC work comes up for termination.  I think the Kirby heirs have a much better case there; from what I understand they have hard evidence that he was working on the New Gods well before going to work for DC.  OTOH, they may be less inclined to terminate in that case, as DC has treated them much better than Marvel.  I believe they still get royalties from DC.

[Thad]

Ars: California judge winnows another monolithic BT suit down from 188 IP's to a single defendant; understands how BT works and says that simply being part of the same swarm does not satisfy the legal requirement of "acting in concert".

[Pacobird]

which put them in the position of having to prove a negative (that Kirby's work wasn't for-hire).

er

[Thad]

Part error and part oversimplification.

One: The Kirbys weren't actually the plaintiffs in this case, Marvel was.  But the Kirbys were the ones who filed for termination of copyright transfer, which meant they had to prove that a transfer occurred.

But that DOES boil down to proving a negative: that no for-hire agreement existed.

The instance-and-expense test relies on the assumption that Kirby didn't do work on his own initiative and THEN pitch it to Marvel.  But the creation of characters like the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, and the New Gods suggests Kirby did exactly that.

Trouble is, Marvel kept Kirby's original art pages, so if he DID do any work on spec, his family can't produce evidence of it.

Now, Marvel agreed, back in the 1980's, to return Kirby's pages.  In exchange, he ultimately signed a contract saying his work had been for-hire.  (Which, again, would be superseded if his family could produce any evidence to the contrary; you can't retroactively define a work as for-hire.)

Perversely, Marvel never returned his art; that was part of this legal maneuvering too, but the judge threw it out on statute-of-limitations grounds.  Famously, a few thousand pages of it were left in a box in a break room and mysteriously walked away.  And Lee recently casually revealed, on some damn Sci-Fi Channel special, that he's got a few thousand pages in his garage.

Ultimately I can't really fault the judge's decision under the circumstances.  But it got to this point because of a decades-long pattern of malice and incompetence.

[Bal]

Ars: California judge winnows another monolithic BT suit down from 188 IP's to a single defendant; understands how BT works and says that simply being part of the same swarm does not satisfy the legal requirement of "acting in concert"; has 50gig/month usenet account

[Thad]

What?  We're finally getting patent overhaul?

...oh.  It's designed specifically to fuck individuals and small businesses even MORE.  Well that's unsurprising.

Kudos to the WSJ for reporting that ACTUALLY looks out for small business instead of just claiming to.

[Mongrel]

Can you re-post the text? All I'm getting is

WASHINGTON—A patent-system overhaul nearly a decade in the making is expected to receive final congressional passage this month, significantly altering how anyone with an invention—from a garage tinkerer to a large corporation—will vie for profitable control of that idea's future.

The bill, which passed a key Senate vote Tuesday and is expected to get President Barack Obama's signature, will reverse centuries of U.S. patent policy by awarding patents to inventors who are "first to file" their invention with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Currently the "first to invent" principle reigns, which often spawns costly litigation between dueling inventors.

The ...

Yes, it actually ends in an ellipse. There isn't even a "Want more? Pay now for access!" ad or anything like that. It just ends.

[Royal☭]

Here's a tip when that happens: Simply copy the headline then post it into Google. That'll get your around the WSJ's paywall.


But the gist of it is that the system is changing from patents being awarded to the first to actually invent something, to being the first to come up with the idea. So in short, there's no reason that say, Apple wouldn't just flood the patent office with every asinine idea it can think, and sue anyone who gets it working later.

[Pacobird]

Terrible law.

[Thad]

But the gist of it is that the system is changing from patents being awarded to the first to actually invent something, to being the first to come up with the idea. So in short, there's no reason that say, Apple wouldn't just flood the patent office with every asinine idea it can think, and sue anyone who gets it working later.

First to file, in fact.  So even if somebody else already GOT it working but didn't pony up the dough, Apple can patent it.

[Mothra]

Christ that's retarded.

[Rico]

It's the system used by virtually every other country with patent protection, so it might be interesting to do the research to see how it's ended up working in practice.

[Norondor]

EXCUSE ME RICO, i'm pretty sure that america exists in an exceptionalist vacuum and there's no point in looking at how other countries handle their social policies to see if they would work here!