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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 4 page paper reports some of the facts of Marvel's lawsuit and Sony's countersuit and the outcome of those lawsuits. The writer comments about the motivation of each company and whether either or both were justified in their claims. The writer also comments on what might have been done to avoid the lawsuits. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: MM12_PGmvlsn.RTF
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
The exact language and terms in that agreement have not been published and the lawsuit remained sealed as it was initially presented because the documents contain information that would be
detrimental to each companys trade secrets (Shprintz, 2003). Marvel wanted it unsealed, Sony wanted it sealed and the first judge in the case wanted it unsealed (Kiefer and Hiestand, 2003).
Marvel stated that it never intended for Sony to have exclusive rights to merchandising and promotion of the Spider-Man character (Shprintz, 2003). This claim was reinforced by another lawsuit Marvel
filed against Sony in January 2004 regarding merchandising royalties (BBC, 2004). Marvel wanted to terminate the licensing agreement it had signed with Sony, alleging breach of contract when Sony "withheld
$1.5 million from a participation payment to Marvel" (Shprintz, 2003, p. 1). Marvel also wanted a complete audit of Sonys books (Shprintz, 2003). Marvel was suing for more than $50
million in damages (Kiefer and Hiestand, 2003). Sony counter-sued alleging that Marvel was "using inappropriate accounting to deprive Sony of certain merchandising revenue" (Kiefer and Hiestand, 2003, p. 3). Sony
also claimed that Marvel was using the lawsuit to force a renegotiation of the original licensing agreement (Kiefer and Hiestand, 2003). Since the original licensing agreement has not been published
nor do we know what the to companies actually agreed to in 1999, Marvel may have been very justified in filing this lawsuit. Marvel executives comment that Sony was trying
to "misappropriate Spider-Man for itself to the exclusion of Marvel" (Kiefer and Hiestand, 2003). That may not be an unreasonable conclusion. They also said that Sony used tactics to
protect its own affiliates, which violate the original agreement (Kiefer and Hiestand, 2003). While Marvel may well have used the lawsuit to force a new licensing agreement with Sony,
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