Legal Matters

We thought the Eagle Awards were over. We were (possibly) wrong.

Daniel Best is at it again, this time with the decades-spanning story of Joe Simons's stolen artwork and a subsequent investigation by the FBI:

Daniel Best digs up the bankruptcy court proceedings for Todd McFarlane Inc. and notes that the $2.2 million settlement includes $1.1 million set aside for the "Gaiman Settlement (Class 4)." As Best notes, this is not necessarily the amount of money that Neil Gaiman received, since lawyers fees were to come out of the money.

In my last post, we looked at the attorney-client privilege question addressed by yesterday's Ninth Circuit ruling in favor of DC. But does a clear victory for DC in a this rather technical legal issue signal a greater loss for the Siegel and Shuster heirs?

Warner Bros is doing the happy dance in the Superman legal tangle after what was called a unanimous and extremely significant ruling from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Heard before Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain and N. Randy Smith, Circuit Judges, the Opinion (see link below) was written by Judge O’Scannlain.

By now you know a lot of the wacky details: "Penis! Penis! Penis!", the restraining orders, the menacing muscle who was only a friend, and so on—but this account adds some dog poop.

You'll recall that a few weeks ago, the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs sued Dynamite over their ongoing lines of Tarzan and John Carter comics. Although the earliest works in each series are in the public domain, ERB, Inc. sued on the basis of trademark infringement, claiming that Dynamite's Lord of the Jungle was infringing their trademark for "TARZAN LORD OF THE JUNGLE" and so on. Well, Dynamite has responded, and it's pretty much a blanket denial, as you can see above. Dynamite's defense is pretty simple: the books are in the public domain, and ERB, Inc., doesn't have a trademark to infringe. For instance, ERB didn't file a trademark claim for Lord of the Jungle until March, 2012, although a shadowy company called ETT Corp. had filed one a few years earlier.

Last year a federal court in New York denied the Kirby heirs' attempt to claim the copyright in Spider-Man and other Marvel properties. Why, then, is their lawyer betting the future of the Siegel lawsuit on the same losing arguments?

DC's latest filing in the Siegel case made headlines because of the company's request for a trial. But was that really a surprise? In today's post, we'll look at what the filing reveals about DC's not-so-secret war -- and how the final fate of Superman may be determined by Facebook and the Winklevoss twins.

Last week, Silver Springs, MD police made a fantastic collar when a routine pullover for a license plate violation revealed a Lamborghini driven by a man in a Batman suit. But was it THE Batman or just a pale imitation?

Deadline is reporting that WB has changed tactics and now wants a trial in the ongoing rights battle over Superman:

Talk about a lousy break: The van containing all of Avatar's merchandise from WonderCon that was going on to Emerald City Comicon was stolen from a comics shop parking lot: