The Joe Shuster estate suing Warner Bros and DC Comics over the Superman movie was the most-read story on Bleeding Cool yesterday. Lying In The Gutters is the daily runaround for the most-read stories the day before – as well as over the past six years. Founded sixteen years ago and steeped in a history of comic book industry gossip a further eighteen years before that, Bleeding Cool has become one of the longest-standing and most well-known pop culture websites around. The Daily Lying In The Gutters remains a long-running run around the day before and possibly the day ahead. You can sign up to receive it as an e-mail here. And maybe you just have.

Joe Shuster Sues Superman Movie in the Daily LITG, 1st February, 2025
Superman movie YouTube screencap

The Joe Shuster estate suing Warner Bros and DC Comics over the Superman movie and the top ten stories on Bleeding Cool yesterday

  1. Superman Lawsuit: Shuster Estate Sues WBD, DC Over Foreign Rights
  2. Life-Size $22,000 Red Hulk Statue Up for Purchase from Beast Kingdom
  3. IDW Report: Diamond Bankruptcy Leaves “Substantial Doubt” For Future
  4. Cobra Kai Season 6: New Part 3 Sneak Peek, Preview Images Released
  5. Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 Official Trailer Hits Monday; New Key Art 
  6. Four IDW Comics, Including From Scott Snyder, Announced as TV Series
  7. Joe Quesada’s Amazing Stories Adds JMS, Ennis, Priest, Stegman, Ribic
  8. Mega City Comics In Camden, London Has Been Saved… But By Whom?
  9. Absolute Batman #5 Sells Over 140K And How Darkseid Is A YouTube Troll
  10. Valiant Beyond Launch Postpones Over Diamond Bankruptcy Concerns

And a few more of mine from yesterday;

The estate of Superman creator Joseph Schuster is suing Warner Bros. Discovery and its DC Comics, claiming it lacks the rights to release the upcoming summer tentpole in a handful of key territories.

Plaintiff Mark Warren Peary, executor to the estate, filed the suit today in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York seeking “damages and injunctive relief for Defendants’ ongoing infringement in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, as well as declaratory relief establishing the Shuster Estate’s ownership rights across relevant jurisdictions.”

The latest Superman starring David Corenswet in the title role, is fact, set for release on July 11. The cast includes Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and María Gabriela de Faría as The Engineer.

Warner and Peary and his longtime legal team have been in court rather often before this, most recently regarding termination rights under the U.S. Copyright Act. But The automatic foreign copyright reversion issue in this case did not occur until years later, said Marc Toberoff, attorney for the estate, and was never actually litigated.

Now it will be.

“We fundamentally disagree with the merits of the lawsuit, and will vigorously defend our rights,” said a WBD spokesman.

At issue are foreign copyrights to the original Superman character and story, coauthored by Jerome Siegel and Shuster. Though Siegel and Shuster assigned worldwide Superman rights to DC’s predecessor in 1938 “for a mere $130 ($65 each), the copyright laws of countries with the British legal tradition—including Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia—contain provisions automatically terminating such assignments 25 years after an author’s death, vesting in the Shuster Estate the co-author’s undivided copyright interest in such countries,” the suit said.

“Shuster died in 1992 and Siegel in 1996. By operation of law, Shuster’s foreign copyrights automatically reverted to his estate in 2017 in most of these territories (and in 2021 in Canada). Yet Defendants continue to exploit Superman across these jurisdictions without the Shuster Estate’s authorization—including in motion pictures, television series, and merchandise—in direct contravention of these countries’ copyright laws, which require the consent of all joint copyright owners to do so.”

“As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ infringement of the Work’s copyrights and exclusive rights, Plaintiff has been injured in an amount to be determined at trial, inclusive of Plaintiff’s actual damages and Defendants’ profits,” it said.

Meanwhile, the estate is asking the court for a cease and desist order “enjoining Defendants, their officers, agents, employees, and those acting in concert with them, preliminarily during the pendency of this action and permanently thereafter from: (a) infringing, or contributing to or participating in the infringement by others the copyright in the Work or acting in concert with, aiding, or abetting others to infringe said copyright in any way; (b) copying, duplicating, selling, licensing, displaying, distributing, preparing derivative works of the Work, or otherwise using or exploiting the Work, which Plaintiff jointly owns, without Plaintiff’s prior written consent or license to do so.”

Editorial Staff