gaffergamgee

November 30, 2010 6:23 pm There was then a fierce and vicious battle there upon the Dakota plains.  Grodd eventually gained the upper hand, but was swayed by Roosevelt's audacity and charisma and chose to spare him.  The two became fast friends.

Grodd eventually chose to shave all his fur so that he could serve as Roosevelt's running mate and Vice President under the alias "William Howard Taft".  Grodd himself became President and later Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, the two had a falling out over Grodd's implementation of Roosevelt's progressive policies.  For instance, Grodd could never quite understand that humans didn't have the necessary stomach enzymes to digest undercooked or tainted meat and thus let Roosevelt's enforcement initiatives in the meatpacking industry go underfunded.

Later, after becoming disillusioned with American jurisprudence due to the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, Grodd decided to return to supervillainy.

April 23, 2010 1:25 pm Well.  Don't leave us hanging.  What happened to the kittens?

April 2, 2010 10:23 am

@Hawkboy:  I don't know and don't have an opinion on whether the Kirbys should win or not.  I'm just saying that in order to win, they have to establish that Jack Kirby was not an employee of Marvel Comics at that time but was an independent contractor that worked for them as a commissioned artist.   Paragraph 22 on page 6 of the Complaint alleges that Jack Kirby was not an employee of Marvel Comics' predecessor.

You can work for someone and not be an employee in the legal sense.  If he was an employee, then he did not need to sign anything that said work for hire, it's automatic.  If he was a commissioned contractor, then a written agreement that it was work for hire would be needed.

April 1, 2010 10:52 pm

Also, whether someone is an "employee" for purposes of determining a work for hire is determined on a number of factors, including the presence of a written contract.

 

April 1, 2010 10:48 pm

@Hawkboy: I disagree.  Under the statute, copyrights for the creations of an employee automatically go to the employer.

The situation you're describing is for commissioned works of an independent contractor.  The contract between the company and the commissioned artist has to stipulate in writing that the work is a work for hire.  So I was a bit off on that part.  The Kirbys argument is that Jack Kirby was a independent/freelance artist that was commissioned to make those creations and not necessarily an employee.  You are correct that the old presumption that such works were "implied" works for hire no longer applies.

April 1, 2010 10:30 pm

hardy har har.

 glad you're staying, Josh

April 1, 2010 5:18 pm

@conor:  Good, always listen to your lawyer.

April 1, 2010 3:05 pm

@SamIAm:  The rights to a character automatically go to the company when the character was created by an employee of the company acting within the scope of employment or was commissioned by the company, i.e., the company paid the creator and told the creator what to do.

The Kirbys argument is that Jack Kirby was not an employee of Marvel Comics at the time those characters were created but was a freelance artist and came up with the characters (or I guess the elements that he contributed to the characters) on his own.  In which case his share of the copyrights would revert back to the estate .  Marvel does own those characters at the very least because Stan Lee assigned all of his rights to them.  The issue is whether they have to share ownership with Jack Kirby's estate.

March 25, 2010 4:32 pm

I take it that Josh will once again be left home alone with the baby and an entire website to manage. Tsk, tsk.

March 25, 2010 9:42 am @JesseG: Yes. That's it, thank you.