Hollywood Guilds Call For Supreme Court To Take Up High-Stakes Comic Book Copyright Case

Hollywood guilds representing actors, directors and writers have filed amicus briefs, asking the Supreme Court to take up a copyright case filed by the heirs of comic book author Jack Kirby against Marvel over the rights to Spider-Man, X-Men and some characters from The Avengers. Kirby’s estate has attempted to terminate copyright grants, as allowed by the 1976 Copyright Act for work produced before that year, like Kirby’s mid-20^th century work with Marvel. But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rebuffed their efforts, saying Kirby’s status as a freelancer does not fall under the umbrella of “traditional employment,” but rather his characters constitute “commissioned works” owned by Marvel.

A former head of the USPTO and former U.S. register of copyrights have criticized the court’s interpretation of the law, and Hollywood groups like the Screen Actor’s Guild and the Writer’s Guild of America say the appeals court ruling “jeopardizes the statutory termination rights that many Guild members may possess in works they created,” as the groups wrote in their amicus brief. “Where the scales of justice are tipped so heavily against the creator and the costs of litigation are so great,” they write, “it all but eviscerates the authorial rights that Congress preserved to creators.”