Karimi & Associates Law Firm presents according to The New York Times:
The Walt Disney Company, known for its iconic film and television holdings, has recently filed several lawsuits to invalidate copyright termination notices sent by artists and illustrators of popular characters such as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Thor. In other words, Disney is trying to prevent them from taking over copyrights for their characters.
The dispute started in the Spring when Marvel Entertainment, which Disney owns, received notices of copyright termination from creators of some of its famous characters. The creators’ claims were based on a provision of the U.S Copyright law, where it permits authors or their heirs to regain ownership of a product after a given number of years. However, it is to be noted that The Copyright Revision Act of 1976, which recognized the right to copyright termination attempts, bans termination for people who delivered the copyrighted work at the “instance and expense” of an employer.
The legal representative of Disney has stated that: “Since these were works made for hire and thus owned by Marvel, we filed these lawsuits to confirm that the termination notices are invalid and of no legal effect.” Disney has mentioned in one of its lawsuits against the creator that “Marvel assigned Lieber stories to write, had the right to exercise control over Lieber’s contributions, and paid Lieber a per-page rate for his contributions.” Those conditions render his contributions “work made for hire, to which the Copyright Act’s provisions do not apply.”