Kirby v. Marvel Characters, Inc.

(1) Whether a court can constitutionally take copyrights to works originally owned and authored by an independent contractor and hand them to a private party by judicially re-designating them "works for hire;" (2) whether "employer" under the Copyright Act of 1909 can be judicially extended beyond conventional employment to independent contractors, when this contradicts its common law meaning, binding Supreme Court precedent and longstanding canons of statutory construction; and (3) whether "work for hire" can be determined based on post-creation contingencies, like discretionary payment, when authorship and ownership of a copyrightable work, including "work for hire," vests at inception.