What’s this about DC owning the copyright on the ad for Action Comics #1?
As I just mentioned, you have a five-year period to terminate, and if you take longer than five years, you cannot terminate the copyright. There were ads for Action Comics featuring Superman that came out before Action Comics #1. Since they fell BEFORE Action Comics #1′s release, they fell outside of the five-year period, and the Siegels could not terminate them. So yes, DC owns the copyright for the Action Comics #1 ad, which was a small black and white reproduction of the cover of Action Comics #1. So DC owns the right to the character who appears in that ad – however, since it is devoid of the context of the story, all they own is a super-strong man in a black and white outfit (the S is not even recognizable, so they wouldn’t get that, even) – the name Superman isn’t even used, so they don’t get that. So basically, they get nothing. It’s, like, 10 pages of the ruling, and it amounts to essentially nothing. If you have any further questions you’d like to see included here, let me kno
