Marvel sues to keep Spider-Man, X-Men copyrights

[samurainoir]

Something else to keep in mind. "Work for Hire" was not even properly defined as a legal concept until after the Golden and Silver Age characters were already created, which you can imagine might create all manner of problems to work through, particularly since the documentation might not be as airtight as one would expect in this day and age. Most of the time it was a rubber stamp on the back of their paycheck, and even that might not have come until later.

This really isn't as cut and dried as many people make it out to be.