Weil – Marvel Prevails in Copyright Litigation

Weil, Gotshal & Manges represented Marvel Entertainment, Inc. in its federal district court victory over the heirs of Jack Kirby, a noted comic book artist who worked for Marvel during the late 1950s and early 1960s when Marvel created many of its iconic comic book superheroes.

After The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to purchase Marvel for $4.2 billion in 2009, the defendants served copyright termination notices on Marvel, Disney, and various other entities claiming that Kirby alone had “created” several of Marvel’s classic comic book characters, including The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and the X-Men. In early 2010, Marvel filed suit in federal district court in New York seeking a declaratory judgment that the termination notices were invalid and that the heirs had no basis to “reclaim” the copyrights.
On July 28, 2011, the court delivered a 50-page ruling granting Marvel’s motion for summary judgment. Judge Colleen McMahon rejected all of defendants’ legal theories, finding that “none of the evidence submitted by the Defendants makes so much as a dent in the ‘almost irrebuttable’ presumption that the Kirby Works were works for hire.” The court held that “Marvel acquired the federal statutory copyright in the Kirby Works by virtue of its status as their ‘author’ under the work-for-hire doctrine.” Accordingly, the court entered a declaratory judgment that the termination notices were invalid.
The Weil team included partners James Quinn, Bruce Rich, and Randi Singer and associates Sabrina Perelman and Jessica Costa. The law firms Haynes & Boone LLP and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker LLP served as co-counsel.