After Disney-Marvel Deal, Cartoonist’s Heirs Seek to Reclaim Rights

By Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

The Walt Disney Company's proposed $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment may come with a headache: a brand-new superhero copyright dispute.

Heirs to the comic-book artist Jack Kirby, who has been credited as the co-creator of characters and stories behind Marvel mainstays like the "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four," among many others, last week sent 45 notices of copyright termination to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and others who have been making films and other forms of entertainment based on the characters.

The legal notices expressed an intent to regain copyrights to some creations as early as 2014, according to a statement from Toberoff & Associates, a Los Angeles firm that helped win a court ruling last year returning a share of the copyright in Superman to heirs of the character's co-creator, Jerome Siegel.

Reached by telephone on Sunday, Mr. Toberoff declined to elaborate on the statement. A spokeswoman for Marvel had no immediate comment. Disney said in a statement, "The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now, and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition." Fox, Sony, Paramount and Universal had no comment.

Marvel shareholders must still approve the sale of the company to Disney, which is already battling criticism from some Wall Street analysts that Marvel comes with too messy an array of rights agreements. The worry is that Disney will have a hard time immediately executing a coordinated exploitation of Marvel's various brands.

Sony has the film rights to Spider-Man in perpetuity, for instance, while Fox has the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Paramount has a distribution agreement for Marvel's next few self-produced movies, including a second "Iron Man" film. Meanwhile, Hasbro has certain toy rights and Universal holds the Florida theme park rights to Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, among other characters.

Mr. Kirby, who died in 1994, worked with the writer-editor Stan Lee to create many of the characters that in the last decade have become some of the most valuable in a Hollywood that hungers for super-heroes. Mr. Kirby was involved with "The Incredible Hulk," "The Mighty Thor," "Iron Man," "Spider-Man," and "The Avengers," and others.

The window for serving notice of termination on the oldest of the properties opened several years ago, and will remain open for some time under the law. But Disney's announced purchase gives a new reason for anyone with claims on Marvel to stake out a position.

Under copyright law, the author or his heirs can begin a process to regain copyrights a certain period of years after the original grant. If Mr. Kirby's four children were to gain the copyright to a co-created character, they might become entitled to a share of profits from films or other properties using it. They might also find themselves able to sell rights to certain characters independently of Marvel, Disney, or the various studios that have licensed the Marvel properties for their hit films.

In July, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that Warner Brothers and its DC Comics unit had not violated rights of the Siegel heirs in handling internal transactions related to Superman, but an earlier ruling had already granted the heirs a return of their share in the copyright. In the late 1990s, Mr. Toberoff represented a television writer, Gilbert Ralston, who sued Warner over the rights to the film "Wild, Wild West." The suit was ultimately settled.

Copyright issues have become increasingly difficult for Hollywood, as it continues to trade on characters and stories that were created decades ago, but are now subject to deadlines and expiration dates under federal copyright law.