Superman’s Troubled Past

“Yet for all of his incredible abilities, and his commitment to creating a more peaceful world, Superman has generated bitter financial disputes and frequent litigation.”

—9th Circuit

The story of how the two creators of Superman received a meager $130 to give up all their rights to the Superman character is heart-wrenching. Back in 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster jumped at the opportunity to include their newly refined Superman stories, in color, on the first issue of Action Comics published by Detective Comics (a publisher that was later to become DC Comics). According to Wikipedia, Action Comics #1 is widely considered to be both the beginning of the superhero genre and the most valuable comic book in the world.

Siegel and Shuster quickly realized their blunder in contract negotiation, and in 1947 sued the publisher. They claimed the $130 initial payment was not sufficient consideration for a copyright assignment. The court eventually decided in favor of the publisher, holding that the publisher owned the rights to the Superman character. Largely because the rights to Superboy were held by the court to belong to Siegel and Shuster, the creators were able to get a settlement of $94,013.16 (over 1.26 million in today’s term) out of court. 

In 1969, Warner Bros and DC Comics became part of the same conglomerate. The same year, Siegel and Shuster sued DC Comics a second time over the ownership of rights to Superman, this time under the theory that they owned the renewal term under the 1909 Copyright Act. The case went up to the Second Circuit Court, where it was eventually held that the publisher owned the rights to Superman based on the agreement signed as a part of the settlement in 1948 (by then, it was settled law that renewal rights were assignable). So, for a second time, Siegel and Shuster were told they were not the copyright holders of Superman. This was in 1974.

In 1975, people read the following passage on the New York Times: 

Joseph Shuster, who sits amidst his threadbare furniture in Queens, and Jerry Siegel, who waits in his cramped apartment in  Los Angeles, share the hope that they each will get pensions from the Man of Steel.

Warner Bros was then in preparation for a Superman movie. They decided to offer Siegel and Shuster a pension and medical insurance and credited them as the creators of Superman, out of “a moral obligation” amidst all the negative publicity on the destitute condition of Siegel and Shuster. In exchange for Warner Bros’ provisions, Siegel and Shuster were asked to reaffirm the 1974 decision, that DC Comics owned all the rights to Superman “including any and all renewals and extensions of . . . such rights.” 

Shuster passed away in 1992, and Siegel passed away in 1996. DC Comics made arrangements with each man’s heirs, and the heirs all agreed to not contend Warner Bros’ and DC Comics’ rights to Superman in exchange for annual payments from Warner Bros and DC Comics—at least it was so according to Warner Bros and DC Comics. 

The heirs disagreed. The copyright battle continued on for another thirty years.

Siegel’s heirs and Warner Bros couldn’t agree on whether a valid agreement between them formed in 2001, in which Siegel’s heirs gave up all their rights to Superman; and DC Comics disputed the validity of Shuster’s heirs’ copyright termination notice and insisted the agreement they entered in 1992 with Shuster’s heirs was valid and therefore the heirs had no termination right based on the original agreement signed by Shulster. 

Both disputes were (convoluted in content, complex in procedures, and) finally adjudicated by the Ninth Circuit in 2013, where it was remanded and decided by the district court that a binding agreement between DC Comics and Siegel formed in October 2001, and the agreement between Shuster’s heirs and DC Comics, signed after Shuster’s death in 1992, was not subject to termination under § 304(d)—in a nutshell, Siegel and Shuster’s heirs held no rights to Superman. 

The Latest Chapter

A little over ten years later, in the latest chapter of the copyright fight over Superman, another lawsuit is now pending in a district court in New York, where Shuster’s heir, Mark Warren Peary, argues he has the right to terminate DC Comics and Warner Bros’ rights to Superman “in countries with the British legal tradition—including Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia.” According to the complaint filed in January, 2025, these countries allow for copyright assignments such as the one signed in 1938 to automatically terminate 25 years after the death of the authors. The complaint states that the rights to Superman would have reverted back to Peary in 2017 in most of the former British territories, and in 2021 in Canada.

DC Comics and Warner Bros moved to dismiss this case in March 2025, arguing both that the New York court lacked jurisdiction over the case, and that the 1992 agreement entered between them and Shuster’s heirs fully adjudicated these foreign rights and was already held to be a valid and binding agreement by the 9th Circuit back in 2013. Legal experts from the UK, Australia, Ireland, and Canada were retained by the Defendant to corroborate this point.

We wait to see if the case will be tossed or allowed to proceed by court.

Foreign Termination Rights

We will not repeat again how important it is for authors to read, understand, and negotiate your publishing contracts before signing. We will also omit another discussion on US termination rights. Instead, in this blog post, we would like to take you on a short journey to sample some of the termination rights in non-US countries. 

Countries in the EU, despite being bound in a single market, have very diverse rules on termination. For example, France allows copyright to be transferred to a publisher for the full copyright term without termination rights, whereas Germany does not allow any transfer of copyright ownership other than to an heir. In Austria, under Section 29 of the Copyright Act, if a publisher does not use a work as intended by contract, the author can terminate. The right to terminate can’t be waived more than three years in advance.

29. (1) Where the right to use a work is not exercised in accordance with the purpose for which it was granted or is exercised only to an extent so inadequate as to prejudice important interests of the author, the latter, provided he is not at fault, may rescind the contract prematurely insofar as it relates to such right to use.

(2) Rescission shall not become effective until the fruitless expiry of an appropriate additional term fixed by the author. Such term need not be fixed where the exercise of the right to use is impossible for the acquirer or is refused by him or where to allow such an additional term would jeopardize overriding interests of the author.

(3) The right to rescind the contract for the reasons specified in paragraph (1) may not be waived more than three years in advance. This term shall not include any period during which the holder of the right to use the work was prevented from doing so by circumstances attributable to the author.

(4) The effect of a declaration by the author rescinding the contract may not be disputed unless the holder of the right to use the work rejects such declaration within 14 days of receiving it.

In Asia, most major jurisdictions do not have termination rights that are unique to a transfer of copyright. China, Japan, and South Korea have no rules on termination of copyright transfer. In India, under Section 19A of the Copyright Act, the Copyright Appellate Board can adjudicate cases where an author believes the publisher is no longer adequately exploiting his or her work.

19A. Disputes with respect to assignment of copyright. — (1) If an assignee fails to make sufficient exercise of the rights assigned to him, and such failure is not attributable to any act or omission of the assignor, then, the Appellate Board may, on receipt of a complaint from the assignor and after holding such inquiry as it may deem necessary, revoke such assignment.

Final Remarks

Of course, contracts that purport to transfer copyright are usually subject to contract interpretation rules, such as the common aversion to terms that are defined as perpetual. Additionally, there are many statutes in place (e.g., in several countries, the term of copyright transfer, when not specified, is assumed to be only 5 years) that aim to protect creators from inadvertently signing away their rights. 

But the elephant in the room remains: entertainment giants like Warner Bros have armies of lawyers who can outmaneuver authors at crafting sweeping terms—worse still, these contractual terms are not negotiable (contrary to what courts and lawmakers often imagine them to be) for the vast majority of authors. 

If the upcoming 2025 Superman movie were based on a character created today, the story would be boringly straightforward: When’s the last time you heard of a screenwriter negotiating over copyright? Everything goes to Warner Bros. No one bats an eye anymore.