…which may be over. DC Comics has won the latest and probably final round in their legal battle with a freelance cartoonist, Marcel Walker. Walker charged that he was owed compensation for a Superman graphic novel they published in the year 2000. This article summarizes the situation as it stood before the latest decision, which was to deny Walker's appeal.
So it looks like he's lost. As an admittedly-biased layman with no more knowledge of the situation that I've read in a few articles, I have an opinion. It's that he deserved to lose, but may have lost for the wrong reason.
First, an admission of prejudice: Steve Gerber, who wrote the comic Walker charged was cribbed from his, is a good friend of mine and one of the most ethical people I know. I could believe plagiarism from some people who work in comics, but not Gerber. Secondly, from what I know of the submission and the comic that Walker thought was based on his work, the similarities seem too slight. As everyone who deals in any area of fiction is aware, there's such a thing as two people independently coming up with the same idea. I've seen it happen in cases where the premise was a lot less generic and obvious than the idea that was supposedly burgled here.
It is on that basis that DC should have won — and I must say, I'm glad they fought it. Cases of this sort are sometimes settled not on their merits but because someone decides it's easier to give in than stand on principle. Years ago, a friend of mine wrote a TV script for a series at Universal. My friend's idea was wholly original but after the show aired, a lawsuit was filed by a disgruntled (and very angry) writer who had pitched ideas to the show a season before and failed to sell anything. He charged that my friend's script was obviously derived from his premise.
The charge was high on the malarkey scale. The show had undergone a complete change of creative staff between seasons and no one who had heard the disgruntled guy's pitch had been there when my friend came up with and wrote the similar idea. Nevertheless, someone in the Universal legal department decided it would be cheaper to pay the guy off, and they did. Which was fine for them but my friend is still angry. He still runs into people who think the studio admitted that he committed an act of plagiarism.
So good for DC for fighting this one instead of giving in…but I'm uncomfy with how they won, even if the judge said, as I understand, that this was a non-precedential decision. The verdict was that since the underlying work (i.e., the Superman mythos) was owned by DC, Walker could claim no proprietary interest in his idea. If that's the case, it's a short leap to the company claiming that it automatically owns any idea utilizing its copyrighted materials. They don't. Their ownership only extends to controlling the publication and dissemination of such works. If I want to sit here and write Superman stories for my own enjoyment, DC has no proprietary interest in them, nor can they publish them without making a deal with me. I don't think DC would do that but some copyright proprietors have actually taken that position. I don't like seeing it gain even a smidgen more credibility.