The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has sided with Marvel in a dispute about who owns the rights to popular comic book characters including X-Men, the Fantastic Four ,and the Incredible Hulk. The federal appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who rejected claims filed by the family of renowned comic book artist Jack Kirby.

Kirby died in 1994, but his heirs wanted to terminate Marvel's copyrights from 2014 through 2019 to comics published from 1958 to 1963. Marvel Worldwide Inc. sued in January 2010 to prevent it, leading a U.S. District Judge in July 2011 to conclude the work was done "for hire," a legal term that rendered the claims invalid. (Similar tactics were used in Gary Fredrich's Ghost Rider case earlier this year.) Since the characters were made at the company's expense, Marvel was considered the author and owner of Kirby's creations.

The appeals court added, "Kirby's completed pencil drawings, moreover, were generally not free-standing creative works, marketable to any publisher as a finished or nearly finished product. They build on pre-existing titles and themes that Marvel had expended resources to establish -- and in which Marvel held rights -- and they required both creative contributions and production work that Marvel supplied. That the works are now valuable is therefore in substantial part a function of Marvel's expenditures over and above the flat rate it paid Kirby for his drawings."Other comics included in the case were The Mighty Thor, The Avengers, Ant-Man, Nick Fury, and The Rawhide Kid.

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Via AP

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