This is the latest from a trade I read. I don't think it will kill the deal but it decrease the value of the deal in the long run if they can't use, or have to pay additional fees to use, the Kirby-created characters.
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A new superhero sized wrinkle in Disney's $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment. The family of comic book artist Jack Kirby, he created/co-created numerous characters and stories for Marvel's X-Men, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, among many others, filed "45 notices of copyright termination" to both Marvel and Disney, not to mention paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal and other companies that have used his characters, per the NYT. Kirby's heirs plan is to reclaim the copyrights to some of Kirby's work beginning in 2014. The family is using the same law firm that recently won a ruling that returned a portion of the copyright of Superman to Jerome Siegel's family; he helped create the man of steel character. The report quotes a Disney spokesperson saying, "The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition." Kirby worked with writer/editor Stan Lee to develop many of the characters in question. Kirby died in 1994, he was 76.
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