Stan Lee said he was 'heartbroken' that he never copyrighted Marvel characters for himself; Insider, June 16, 2023

 Eammon Jacobs , Insider; Stan Lee said he was 'heartbroken' that he never copyrighted Marvel characters for himself

""I always resented the fact that when I wrote these stories, I never thought, 'Gee, I ought to try and copyright something myself and own it.' It always belonged to the company," said Lee. "So, from a business point of view, that was a mistake. I was heartbroken. There wasn't much I could do about it.""

Ryan Reynolds taunts Disney with ‘Winnie-the-Screwed’ ad as copyright battles heat up; Fast Company, January 3, 2022

JEFF BEER, Fast Company; Ryan Reynolds taunts Disney with ‘Winnie-the-Screwed’ ad as copyright battles heat up

Mint Mobile finds a way to make the copyrights of a 1926 classic children’s tale about your cellular bill.

"The new Mint Mobile ad is typical Reynolds ad fare, quickly and creatively tapping into a broader cultural conversation for one of his brands. That cultural conversation, however, is only going to get louder, especially for Disney. While it is symbolic that the original Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, is up for public domain two years from now, more pressing are the copyright issues facing key Marvel characters this year.

As reported last fall, multiple former Marvel creators and their estates are challenging Disney with ongoing copyright termination cases around characters like Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Dr. Strange. These cases, which could go as high as the Supreme Court (as it almost did back in 2014, when the company reached a settlement with the estate of Jack Kirby), stem from the Copyright Revision Act of 1976, which provided an opportunity for authors or their heirs to regain ownership of a product after a given number of years."

Avengers 4 Fan Trailer Calls in the X-Men & Defenders; Comic Book Resources, September 18, 2018

Brittany Matter, Comic Book Resources; Avengers 4 Fan Trailer Calls in the X-Men & Defenders

"A new fan trailer seamlessly mashes up the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the X-Men, the Defenders and even Ghost Rider to take on the [sic] Thanos in Avengers 4."

Kirby family attorneys respond to Marvel lawsuit; ComicBookResources.com, 1/9/10

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; Kirby family attorneys respond to Marvel lawsuit:

"Attorneys for the heirs of Jack Kirby call Marvel's assertion that the late artist's contributions were work made for hire "a standard claim predictably made by comic book companies to deprive artists, writers and other talent of all rights in their work."

The statement comes in response to a lawsuit filed Friday by Marvel asking for a judge to invalidate 45 copyright-termination notices issued in September related to such creations as the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, the X-Men and Spider-Man.

Marvel maintains that Kirby's work for the company was "for hire," invalidating the claims of his four children.

However, a press release issued late Friday by Kirby attorneys Toberoff & Associates points out that Marvel was unsuccessful when it made a similar argument in its legal battle with Joe Simon concerning Captain America.

"The truth is that Jack Kirby was his own man," the release states. "Like so many artists in the fledgling comic book industry of the late 1950's/early 1960's, Kirby worked with Marvel out of his own house as a free-lancer with no employment contract, no financial or other security, nor any other indicia of employment. ... Kirby's wonderful creations, which leapt from the page, were not Marvel's 'assignments,' but were instead authored by Kirby under his own steam and then published by Marvel. It was not until 1972 that Kirby by contract granted Marvel the copyrights to his works. It is to this grant that the Kirby family's statutory notices of termination apply."

According to Toberoff & Associates, the Kirby terminations would become effective beginning in 2014. However, it's unclear to which property that date refers. (What notable Kirby co-creations debuted at Marvel in 1958?)

When Congress increased the duration of copyright, lawmakers included a provision that, after a lengthy waiting period, permits authors or their heirs or estates to terminate the grant of rights. However, if the property is determined to be "work made for hire," the copyright would belong to the company that commissioned it."

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/01/kirby-family-attorneys-respond-to-marvel-lawsuit/

Disney Faces Rights Issues Over Marvel; New York Times, 9/21/09

Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes, New York Times; Disney Faces Rights Issues Over Marvel:

"Walt Disney’s proposed $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment may come with a headache: newly filed claims challenging Marvel’s long-term rights to some of its superhero characters.

Heirs to the comic book artist Jack Kirby, a creator of characters and stories behind Marvel mainstays like “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four,” last week sent 45 notices of copyright termination to Marvel and Disney, as well as Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and other companies that have been using the characters.

The notices expressed an intent to regain copyrights to some of Mr. Kirby’s creations as early as 2014, according to a statement disclosed on Sunday by Toberoff & Associates, a law firm in Los Angeles that helped win a court ruling last year returning a share of the copyright in Superman to heirs of one of the character’s creators, Jerome Siegel."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/business/21marvel.html?scp=1&sq=marvel&st=cse