April 25, 2025 - Flashback Friday - Superman and IP

Hey Kids! It's Fri-YAY! Am I right or am I right? Like, this is the Bizzaroest of Bizzaro weeks.

It's Friday, so let's do a #FlashbackFriday about a comic. And, I'm adding a little bit of commentary based on a social media comment a tech leader made recently.

In 1938, Joe Schuster and Jerry Seigel, two teenagers from Cleveland, Ohio, created Superman and sold the character and rights for $130. In 1938 dollars, during the Great Depression, I'm sure $130 was nothing to scoff at.

However, DC Comics would go on to publish Superman continuously for the next 87 years. For most of that time, Shuster and Seigel didn't get an compensation for any use of Superman.

Superman toys? Nothing. Superman TV show? Nothing. It wasn't until 1975 with the Superman movie getting ready to come out that Warner Bros and DC decided that it might look bad in the press if a multi-million dollar movie came out and the creators were living in poverty. DC and WB would eventually pay Shuster and Seigel a "pension" and give them creator credits, but, make no mistake, WB and DC didn't do it out of the kindness of their hearts.,

When you don't have Copyright Laws, then anyone can take your stuff and do whatever they want with it, and they don't owe you a single thing.

AI is kind of like that, the tech industry wants unfettered access to people's creative work and ideas, but when they start making millions and billions off of someone else's content and ideas, does it seem, based on past industry history, that the people that come up with those ideas will be compensated?