Marvel has settled a copyright lawsuit regarding the rights to Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, attorneys for Marvel and the estate of Steve Ditko have “reached an amicable settlement and expect a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice to be filed in the coming weeks” regarding Marvel’s rights to use Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in media.
What was the Spider-Man and Doctor Strange lawsuit about?
The issue started in August 2021 when Ditko’s estate filed a notice of copyright termination regarding Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. The notice stated that, per copyright law, creators (or their heirs) could reclaim the rights to characters previously granted to publishers after a certain amount of time has passed.
With several other notable comic book creators and their heirs coming forward with similar notices, Marvel filed a series of lawsuits in September 2021 in an attempt to retain full control of characters like Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hulk, Thor, and more.
Along with the characters, the termination notices filed by the estates sought to retain any “story element or indicia reasonably associated with the works.”
In June 2023, Marvel struck deals to keep the full rights to the majority of the copyright termination notices it was facing, as U.S. Copyright Law doesn’t cover “works made for hire.” The one exception at the time, however, was Ditko’s estate.
With the matter now being resolved, Marvel can continue using Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and all the other characters involved in the termination notices in future projects. Neither Marvel nor the estate of Ditko returned a request for comment from The Hollywood Reporter.
Ditko and Stan Lee created Spider-Man together in 1962, with the character’s first appearance being in Amazing Fantasy #15. Doctor Strange, meanwhile, was created by Ditko and first appeared in 1962’s Strange Tales #110.
