A ruling has finally been rendered in the legal battle between LucasFilm and a prop designer in England who sells replicas of Star Wars costumes. The Force was not strong with LucasFilm:

A spokesman for Lucasfilm told the newspaper: “This ruling deals a significant blow to the copyright protection afforded not only to Star Wars but to every other great success of the cinematic arts, from Harry Potter to Dr Who and beyond.”

Mark Owen, from law firm Harbottle and Lewis, which acted for Lucasfilm said: “To say that you cannot retain copyright unless the object in question is by a renowned artist just seems wrong. Why should people be able to copy something?

The ruling is the latest twist in the legal battle which has been running since 2004 when Lucasfilm – which owns the Star Wars brand – first discovered Mr Ainsworth was selling the replica outfits.

The designer, from Twickenham, south-west London, was paid £35 each for making the 50 Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars in 1976.

Source

Jonathan Lee Riches is considered the world-record holder in filing the most lawsuits, with Guinness claiming the man has filed over 4,000 lawsuits against concepts, objects, entities and people. Unfortunately, that record rubs Mr. Riches the wrong way and so he has done the only reasonable thing: filed a lawsuit against Guinness.

From Metro.Co.Uk:

In a boldly ironic move, he has now filed a lawsuit against the Guinness Book of World Records, hoping to get an injunction against them naming him as the world’s most litigious man in their 2010 edition. ‘The Guinness Book of World Records have no right to publish my work, my legal masterpieces,’ he says in the legal filing, according to The Spokesman-Review.

Previous targets of his legal ire have included George W. Bush, Che Guevara, Perez Hilton, the Eiffel Tower, Britney Spears, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, Google, the Roman Empire, The Queen, the Magna Carta, the Wu-Tang Clan, Plato, Emilio Estevez and Nordic Gods.

No one in the movie business gets screwed-over more regularly than writers. It’s an eternal mystery as to why writers are considered such scum, but facts are facts. Underpaid, unappreciated and with zero power, writers seem to find themselves in perpetual litigation just to get their due.

Last week a federal judge made asignificant ruling in favor of the Siegel estate, allowing the family to share the copyright of Superman with Time Warner.  This rights a very huge wrong that happened 70 years ago when Jerome Siegel sold his rights for…$130!
Now, Superman as a media entity is entering murky territory. What will happen to future movies? Is George Miller’s forthcoming Justice League of America movie screwed? What does it all mean? There are no definitive answers yet, but Empire Online is weighing in on the matter with a thought-provoking article.

In the past, when a similar judgment was awarded regarding Superboy, DC simply stopped using him (a case questioning whether Superboy was a basis for Smallville remains in motion) – but they can hardly do the same with the Big Blue Boy Scout himself. Or can they? Superman Returns cost a bomb and didn’t give the kind of mega-profits the studio hoped for, and Justice League of America is already looking like a bad idea, although at least that should be cheaper.

This is going to get a lot uglier as time goes by and is yet one more historical example of the comics industry shafting creators.