Ditko, Michelle Hart-Rico and Buz Donato Rico III, Keith A.

Marvel filed the suits in New York and Los Angeles against Lieber, Patrick S. 'Since these were works made for hire and thus owned by Marvel, we filed these lawsuits to confirm that the termination notices are invalid and of no legal effect,' Petrocelli said in a statement. Marvel's lawyers, led by Daniel Petrocelli, say the five new cases present 'virtually identical circumstances.' Marvel points to the Kirby case, in which the federal courts sided with Marvel, finding that the characters were made under work-for-hire arrangements. In the lawsuits, Marvel argues that the characters were created under 'work for hire' arrangements, and that the heirs have no valid claim to the copyrights. Toberoff represents Larry Lieber, the brother of Stan Lee and a co-creator of Thor, Iron Man, and Ant Man as well as the estates of Steve Ditko (Spiderman, Dr Strange), Don Heck (Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye), Don Rico (Black Widow), and Gene Colan (Captain Marvel, Falcon, Blade). 'This is the deep dark secret of the comic book industry, if not now the entire entertainment industry, due to the explosion of these superhero franchises,' Toberoff told Variety in an interview. Toberoff argues that the Marvel authors' work led to multi-billion dollar franchises, and that their heirs should be allowed to share in the wealth. The termination notices were filed by Marc Toberoff, a veteran copyright attorney who fought similar battles on behalf of the heirs of Jack Kirby, a co-creator of several Marvel heroes, and of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the co-creators of Superman. But they would require the studio to make payments to the heirs. If the notices were to succeed, they would not prevent Marvel from using the disputed characters, which were created by multiple collaborators. The move comes after heirs of five Marvel authors filed dozens of termination notices with the US Copyright Office. Marvel filed five lawsuits recently seeking to block the heirs of comic book creators from reclaiming copyrights to many of its most popular characters, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and Doctor Strange.

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