The Legal View

They say failure is an orphan and success is the mother of a million lawsuits—or something like that. AMC's The Walking Dead show is such a huge success that's it's already spawned a now-dismissed suit by original artist Tony Moore; and now original series creator Frank Darabont is suing AMC for unspecified but probably enormous damages, claiming he is being short changed via a form of "Hollywood Accounting."

The Superman and Superboy lawsuits are officially over, pending appeal.After an obligatory mop-up opinion whose outcome & reasoning was foreshadowed in my previous post, Judge Otis Wright has issued the court's official final judgments...

As expected, the district court has ruled that the 2001 settlement agreement between DC and the Siegels is binding and did indeed transfer the Superman copyright to DC. But what about Superboy?This is how...

Tonight in SoHo, a panel of comics all-stars will discuss the Carol Tilley's Seducing the Innocent, which purports to expose industry bete noire Fredric Wertham as a fraud. What's more important for us today,...

In keeping with the court's schedule, yesterday Marc Toberoff filed his response to DC's summary judgment motion in the Superman/Superboy lawsuits. Toberoff has filed these same arguments before, but the accompanying exhibits do include...

In 2008, the Siegel family won a historic courtroom victory. So why did they risk it all on an appeal? An encounter between Jerry Siegel's widow, Joanne,  and Super Boys author Brad Ricca provides a telling clue.

Among the many thoughtful questions raised in my discussion with the Superman Homepage earlier this week was whether the Siegel lawsuit prompted changes to Superman's uniform. This might seem like a small issue, but it reflects...

After a surprising victory in 2008, Siegel attorney Marc Toberoff decided to press for the rights to more Superman material. Instead, he lost everything that the Siegel heirs and he himself had won. Today the Ninth...

Given the lively discussion of what folks don't want to see on The Beat, I couldn't resist noting that an attorney representing Smallville co-creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough in their dispute with Time...

Over the past year creators' copyright crusader Marc Toberoff took some serious hits in the various Superman and Kirby lawsuits. Yet there was also a deceptively routine procedural matter that could have already assured him a victory in the Siegel estate's Superman appeal.

You might hear today that the district court judge has handed Toberoff another stunning defeat this week, "a doozy and an outright win for DC."  It's actually a win for Toberoff, at least procedurally. Here's what happened. 

In his post, Rich Johnston goes on to wonder whether Alan Moore could eventually terminate the Watchmen transfer from 1985. Commenters argue that this is absurd, but depending on the contract Moore could actually re-claim his share of the property.