De Villepin said on Thursday that families of the 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA DC-10 reached a compensation deal with Libya the night before.
"The court's decision paves the way for the Siegel finally to receive the compensation they negotiated for and which DC has been prepared to pay for over a decade, " Warner Bros. said in a prepared statement, referring to its DC Comics division.
Afraid that grantees like DC would reap the benefit of these 19 years without fair compensation to authors, Congress included a termination right, allowing authors to take back the rights in their works before the extended period took effect.
Their position is that even if the heirs did have valid claims at one time, the heirs agreed to let Warner and DC keep the copyrights in exchange for increased royalty payments and other compensation.