Stan Lee Media Suing Founder and Namesake, Stan Lee

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Stan Lee has been about the money before anything for a very, very long time. Don't forget Stan has been involved in a lot of wierd legal manuvering over the years, so it's not surprising that some of this is coming back to haunt him.

To be honest, I think a lot of people are backing Stan in cases like this because of who he is. Sort of like how George Lucas sold the rights to "Star Wars" on multiple occasions, thinking he was done with it. Both to see a set of "young adult" books written as sequels ("Prophets Of The Dark Side", "The Glove Of Darth Vader", etc...), and more famously to Dark Horse comics which turned into a massive legal battle. George Lucas getting the rights back largely because he was the iconic father of the franchise, and I think his star power overshadowed the law in a lot of his dealings. As much as I hate to admit it, I think Stan Lee can be seen in a very similar light. I love the guy, but I'm not sure I'd want to do business with him, especially not on a large scale.

As far as why Marvel and Disney are not involved in the suit, I believe it's part of a strategy. There is probably every intent of going after them, but it's easier to go after the big boys once you have precedent in your favor. They win against the smaller companies, then they can point to those resolutions when making the same arguement against the bigger ones. This can greatly hamper what those high powered lawyers can do, because it limits their abillity to manuver. Precedent being VERY powerful in the US legal system, especially recent precedent.

On the other hand, I'll point out that in the end everyone is going to have to play together nicely or else they are going to lose everything. Simply put the marvel characters are popular because of a shared continuity, and while Stan Lee created a lot of characters he's not the only one writing Marvel. You break up that continuity your going to wind up with weaker properties as a whole, and the destruction of the shared universe people have been spending money on. It serves nobody's interests for this to go too far.

It's also noteworthy that the Marvel liscence has been a huge mess for a while. Consider that Disney owns Marvel, but at the same time their biggest rival theme park: Universal Studios, has the rights to Marvel as far as parks go and has an entire "Island Of Adventure" set up for it. Disney is hardly all powerful with that liscence and was unable to get that agreement overturned, and I believe they did feel it out.

It's a mess, but honestly I don't think how it turns out will actually affect the fans much, all that it's going to influance is how the money flows behind the scenes.
 

Gigaguy64

Special Zero Unit
Apr 22, 2009
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KeyMaster45 said:
Even though Disney and Marvel aren't mentioned in the suit you can bet your bottom that now Disney owns Marvel they will unleash their unholy army of lawyers on these people.
I just got the mental image of Disney Lawyers emerging from the shadows like Reapers dressed in Business suits and holding Briefcases.
 

thethingthatlurks

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Feb 16, 2010
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Kheapathic said:
thethingthatlurks said:
Could somebody make this into a flowchart? I honestly have no idea what the hell is going on there...
I think it went something like this.

[http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a313/Kheapathic/?action=view&current=StanLeeFlow.jpg]

Now the second one (Stan Lee Media Inc) is crying foul on Stan Lee; saying he transferred ALL characters he created, not just the ones he created while there. This is where I hate things like this. The original creator should always have some sort of creative control over his ideas, especially if they spawn something huge. Giving the idea/concept/rights/whatever to a company just brings about bad things.
Ah, that clears up the who's-who of the companies. Thanks, mate!
Now I just have to figure out who is actually suing who, and who will end up having to pay for the legal precedings.
 

Blueruler182

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May 21, 2010
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If this affects the comics I'm going to be pissed. If this affects the movies, I'm going to get my stabbing stick.
 

Retosa

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Jul 10, 2010
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thethingthatlurks said:
Kheapathic said:
thethingthatlurks said:
Could somebody make this into a flowchart? I honestly have no idea what the hell is going on there...
I think it went something like this.

[http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a313/Kheapathic/?action=view&current=StanLeeFlow.jpg]

Now the second one (Stan Lee Media Inc) is crying foul on Stan Lee; saying he transferred ALL characters he created, not just the ones he created while there. This is where I hate things like this. The original creator should always have some sort of creative control over his ideas, especially if they spawn something huge. Giving the idea/concept/rights/whatever to a company just brings about bad things.
Ah, that clears up the who's-who of the companies. Thanks, mate!
Now I just have to figure out who is actually suing who, and who will end up having to pay for the legal precedings.
You're pretty close, at least as far as I can understand it. The only error that I think exists (and I'm not 100% sure about it), is that Stan Lee Media Inc. existed at the same time as Stan Lee Media as a subsidary company. Stan Lee Media went bankrupt, and Stan Lee Media Inc. is claiming that when Stan Lee Media went Bankrupt, Stan Lee signed over all of his characters to Stan Lee Media Inc. before signing them over to POW! and QED Productions, therefore Marvel and Disney do not own the media rights to the characters.

I'm guessing the biggest problem is that the subsidary company is trying to hide when the characters were legally transfered OUT of Stan Lee Media Inc's control.

If I'm wrong, could someone point out where I made my error? If I'm right, woo, I understood the mumbojumbo!
 

rayen020

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May 20, 2009
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The judge is obviously trolling this company so they'll stop gumming up the california legal system. 5 bucks stan lee walks into the courtroom says "excelsior!" Judge bangs gavel finds in favor of the defendant.
 

ZippyDSMlee

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Sep 1, 2007
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EErrrrr sueing the person that dose not own the rights is kinda dim....


PS:Feed the rich to the poor.
 

N3mis

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Apr 8, 2010
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Sonicron said:
Oh, come on. If rights are transferred as a result of this legal action, the consumer will be the biggest loser once again, because this shit always leads to most - if not all - shows, comics etc connected to said action being cancelled, leaving a pile of stuff unresolved forever.
For example, I do not want the new Avengers show to be killed halfway in. I will murder someone if that happens.
ye, I really agree, if they f.ex. cut the Avengers show, I will get really pissed off -.-' it's a reason why the comic/animated world is crooked (or whatever it's called) some people just wanna sue somebody once in a while, just because they use some characters that they might have owned back in the 90's or 80's......
 

VZLANemesis

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Jan 29, 2009
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mattttherman3 said:
If this affects the avengers movie, the company may be destroyed entirely by very very angry fans.
This post made my day.
Have nothing to contribute to this thread... but seriously. Hilarious fucking comment.


...lol.
 

Unrulyhandbag

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Oct 21, 2009
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SaintWaldo said:
Go back to 28 years from date of publication for length of copyright. This whole thing goes away.

Fuck any fallout. If we could handle the Civil War over the moral question of US slavery, we can take the hit over releasing human culture from the bonds of RENT, easily.

It would be TOTALLY worth it to avoid this level of ABSOLUTE ABSURDITY ever occurring again.
Current length feels unpleasant for the consumers but is understandable from the creators point of view. We could kill all these problems by simply making copyright none transferable and expire at death.

Artists in control of their works the whole time, able to make a living from them over long periods and no companies or estates keeping a copyright alive 70 years at a time indefinitely; no problem.
 

SaintWaldo

Interzone Vagabond
Jun 10, 2008
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Unrulyhandbag said:
SaintWaldo said:
Go back to 28 years from date of publication for length of copyright. This whole thing goes away.

Fuck any fallout. If we could handle the Civil War over the moral question of US slavery, we can take the hit over releasing human culture from the bonds of RENT, easily.

It would be TOTALLY worth it to avoid this level of ABSOLUTE ABSURDITY ever occurring again.
Current length feels unpleasant for the consumers but is understandable from the creators point of view. We could kill all these problems by simply making copyright none transferable and expire at death.

Artists in control of their works the whole time, able to make a living from them over long periods and no companies or estates keeping a copyright alive 70 years at a time indefinitely; no problem.
Not being rude to you, try to keep in mind this isn't aimed at you, it's aimed at Stan and creators who won't give up their damn copyrights (DISNEY, SONNY BONO) in a realistic time in human terms, but, there's a phrase that applies here that should kick in before you're selling the same shit for the 1009th time:

"You're only as good as your LAST work."

Another way to say this is,

"What have you done for me lately?"

I should have the right to print Spider-Man #1 as many times as I want by now, or if I'm not happy trying to figure out how to make you want that, re-encode it however I want, even spoof it a little, while STILL calling it Spider-Man without having to fear I will soon need to prove "parody" to a humorless mercenary fuck who will argue anything if you pay him enough. It's my culture and my childhood now. Let me integrate him into my shit like Dracula can, or the Grimms or Homer. That's Homer the Greek, not the Simpson. If I tried to do anything with that particular Homer, who I've been watching pimp shit since I graduated from high school, I'D GET FUCKING SUED. I'm 39. That shit is over 21 years old. I will be almost DEAD before I can re-integrate an archetype I GREW UP WITH. And HE'S just the Flintstones in flimsy duds. At this point I should be able to say that I'm going to do some great shit with the Homer made in the US in under 8 years, not almost 59, when I'm 98. And more concerned with continence than fake "creativity".

That's what we lose by thinking it should be that long.

Again, if you hear anger, it's not at you or your points. I hope I've clarified what I started with even just a little bit.
 

anonymity88

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Sep 20, 2010
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SaintWaldo said:
Go back to 28 years from date of publication for length of copyright. This whole thing goes away.

Fuck any fallout. If we could handle the Civil War over the moral question of US slavery, we can take the hit over releasing human culture from the bonds of RENT, easily.

It would be TOTALLY worth it to avoid this level of ABSOLUTE ABSURDITY ever occurring again.
You seriously just compared slavery to a dispute regarding comic book characters?





Srsly?
 

katsabas

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Apr 23, 2008
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Unless some version or copy of the contracts that secured the transfer is found (and it better state that Stan Lee retained ownership of the chars at that time), I call big fat