National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications
| National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit |
| Full case name | National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc., et al. |
| Argued | May 4 1951 |
| Decided | August 30 1951 |
| Citation(s) | 191 F.2d 594 (2d Cir. 1951) |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | Complaint dismissed, 93 F. Supp. 349 (S.D.N.Y. 1950). |
| Subsequent action(s) | Clarified, 198 F.2d 927 (2d Cir. 1952). |
| Holding | |
| An author does not forfeit his original copyright to a piece of intellectual property if his work is contracted to another who fails to properly copyright works which incorporate the original property. Fawcett Publications' Captain Marvel comic strips were proven to have plagiarized those of National Comics' Superman character. | |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Circuit Judges Harrie B. Chase, Jerome Frank, Learned Hand |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Hand, joined by Chase, Frank |
| Laws applied | |
| Copyright Act of 1909 | |
National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications, 191 F.2d 594 (2d Cir. 1951). was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a twelve-year legal battle between National Comics (also known as Detective Comics and DC Comics) and the Fawcett Comics division of Fawcett Publications, concerning Fawcett's Captain Marvel character being an infringement on the copyright of National's Superman comic book character. The litigation is notable as one of the longest-running legal battles in comic book publication history.
The suit resulted in the dissolution of Fawcett Comics and the cancellation of all of its superhero-related publications, including those featuring Captain Marvel and related characters. In the 1970s, National, rebranded as DC Comics, licensed the rights to Captain Marvel and revived the character. DC Comics then purchased the rights completely in 1980.
Captain Marvel was not the first superhero comic book character, or even the first Fawcett superhero character, to be the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit. In 1939, Detective Comics and its rights-holding sister company Superman, Inc. had filed suit against Fox Feature Syndicate for their Superman-like hero Wonder Man, and filed against Fawcett the following year for their Master Man character. In the case of Master Man, Fawcett simply did as Fox Features had done: they ceased publication of the character and replaced his feature in their Master Comics periodical with a new strip (Bulletman).
However, Fawcett decided to fight Detective's allegations that Captain Marvel, the star character of their Whiz Comics periodical, was also an illegal copy of Superman. Captain Marvel had proven to be very successful for the company, and had, within two years of his existence, become its flagship comic book character and had been the first superhero to be adapted into film, in The Adventures of Captain Marvel. By the mid-1940s, Captain Marvel had become the most popular superhero in the country, his Captain Marvel Adventures was the nation's highest circulated comic book magazine (selling 1.4 million copies an issue), and Fawcett had created an entire family of spin-off characters: Captain Marvel, Jr., Mary Marvel, Uncle Marvel, and even Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. While its lawsuit against Fawcett was still pending, a few of the elements unique to the Captain Marvel strip found their way into Superman comics, including making Superman fly, Superman's arch-villain Lex Luthor a bald "mad scientist" like Captain Marvel's Dr. Sivana, and introducing the adventures of Superman as a teenager under the title Superboy, after Captain Marvel's teenaged sidekick Captain Marvel, Jr. proved to be popular.
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