IamMightySore wrote:

I remember reading that in the book. But this method would have been unknown to the vast general population at the time.

The heart of the lawsuit isn't so much who wrote which stories, but who created the marketable characters and therefore can profit from the movie rights and other merchandising.

I think it was in that same book that Stan admits that no one remembers who came up with which particular idea, because at the time - they were just trying to come up with a decent comic book. No thought was given to posterity, because - after all - this was just a comic book. No one realized that history was being made at the time.
And that's where my problem comes from.

Jack Kirby is in no position to profit from his creations.

Does the family/heirs deserve a chunk of change, or an ongoing royalty? Yes. If Jack Kirby, during his lifetime, had been paid royalties for these characters he CO-created, his family would have benefited from that money. No one is denying that, or begrudging them the opportunity to get money that their father should have made in his lifetime.

But, do they deserve the rights to the characters? No ****ing way. They have no use for the characters, or no real way to use them, except to license/sell them back to Marvel for a lot of money.

Of course, copyright law is bull**** anyway, and these characters should either be in public domain at this point, or damn near close to it. It's Marvel's new corporate daddy that got copyright law extended out to such ludicrous amounts of time in the first place, and probably will do so again the next time Steamboat Willie comes close to being in public domain.