Commercially ghoulish or ghostly? Stan Lee was an ‘AI-powered’ hologram for marvel fans at LA Comic Con

[Georgia Jenkins]

Commercially ghoulish or ghostly? Stan Lee was an ‘AI-powered’ hologram for marvel fans at LA Comic Con

 Georgia Jenkins Tuesday, October 21, 2025 - Artificial Intelligence, commercial exploitation, copyright law, danish copyright, Dutch copyright, Georgia Jenkins, hologram, licensing, neighbouring rights, Personality rights

In the weeks leading up to LA Comic Con news began to circulate that Stan Lee, comic book author and father to Spider-Man, the X-men, the Fantastic Four, most Avengers, Daredevil and Doctor Strange, would be in attendance. Despite Lee passing in 2018, Marvel fans could pay to take photos and have a 3-minute, one-to-one conversation, with ‘HoloStan’ in an enclosed booth. Greeting fans, HoloStan spoke of his excitement to keep the Marvel dream (commercially?) alive and responded to questions. While the giddiness between the fans is palpable, online the sentiment was decidedly more negative, with some calling it ‘ghoulish’  and other referencing Black Mirror’s 'ghost slavery' episode. Most asked whether there was permission from Lee’s estate.

Graphic by Riana Harvey

Apparently, it was unnecessary. Proto Hologram entered into an agreement with Kartoon Studios (previously Genius Brands International) to create HoloStan for LA Comic Con. This forms part of their broader strategy for 'rapid commercial expansion of its Stan Lee IP'. Think physically-linked NFTs, a 20-year deal with Marvel Studios over 'Stan Lee' (where HoloStan probably comes into play), and new films outside of Marvel Studios amongst other new licensing deals. Kartoon Studios reported in August 2025 that this commercialization has concretised new revenue streams helpful for ‘long-term shareholder value’.

While this GuestKat is generally cautious of estate-based copyright disputes, Kartoon Studios’ hold on the legacy of Stan Lee and related IP feels downright ghoulish.

Who owns IP-relating to Stan Lee?

All of these licensing deals hinge on a joint venture agreement between Genius Brands International (later ‘Kartoon Studios’) and Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment (‘POW’) in 2020 to acquire the ‘name and post-Marvel IP […] [including] more than 100 original Stan Lee creations’ outside of those owned by Disney. Named the ‘Stan Lee Universe’, it was reported that the joint venture:

will hold worldwide rights to the name, physical likeness, physical signature, live-action and animated motion picture, TV, online, digital, publishing, comic book, merchandising and licensing rights to Stan Lee and his IP creations.

Stan Lee’s daughter and trustee, JC Lee, has unsuccessfully tried to invalidate POW’s claim over her father’s related IP on the basis that he was manipulated by other POW co-founders to "transf[er] ownership of his creator rights and rights to his name and likeness “three years after he divested himself of any further legal interest in those rights". According to JC Lee, her father was unable to transfer these rights because he terminated an agreement with the company that held them, meaning that the rights reverted to the Lee Trust.

 

In 2020, Judge Wright was not particularly sympathetic, finding that the claims were barred because it has already been adjudicated several times (an overview here and one related to elder abuse), ‘frivolous’ and for an ‘improper purpose’, amounting to sanctions of $1million, concluding that "Stan Lee, a superhero in his own right, served to inspire the everyday hero. The Court urges parties to treat his legacy with respect and cease engaging in meritless litigation."

Undeterred, in 2023, JC Lee again commenced litigation against POW. This time requesting to the company’s records and alleging that "a series of questionable transactions have left the Lee Trust – of which J.C. Lee is the trustee – with only 15% of the company".

Comment

It seems that the Kartoon Studios train, commercially ghoulish or ghostly, has already departed. In contrast to Judge Wright’s comments, JC Lee and Marvel fans are left on the platform watching Lee’s legacy vanish into the fog in favour of mass commercialization. This is a growing problem, and one that the IPKat has covered in relation to digital replicas and personality rights of deceased persons.

For this GuestKat, HoloStan is a timely reminder of the pitfalls of copyright as a one-fit-solution. The ‘AI-powered’ hologram was trained "on decades of content [Stan Lee] had left behind, from tapes of dozens of convention panels he had appeared on to written and spoken content gathered by the managers of the Stan Lee Universe Brand."

Pitfalls which both the Danish and Dutch legislator are hoping to fill through providing more exploitation rights relating to deepfakes within the copyright system.

In June 2025, the Danish Parliament proposed amending Danish copyright law to include rights over digitally generated imitations of personal characteristics (s 73a) and “artists kunstnerisk præstation” for artistic performances within s 65. The latter excludes performances of literary or artistic works and protects against unauthorised digital imitation. Both will last 50 years from the death of the performing artist or person imitated. The Danish legislator has commented that these will not apply in the context of freedom of expression (satire, parody, pastiche, and caricature) to the extent that it does not endanger other interests (e.g. life, health, privacy, reputation or property).

Danish legislators appear to agree, with Engel-Schmidt opining that these amendments will respond to the problem that '[h]uman beings can be run through the digital copy machine and be misused for all sorts of purposes […].'

In July, parliamentary questions submitted to the Dutch parliament asked whether Dutch copyright law should follow suit. It led to a proposal to amend the Dutch Neighbouring Rights Act. Commentators explain (here and here) that Article 7c would grant performers and other natural persons (who ‘performs “a work of literature, science or art”) a non-transferable “exclusive right to grant permission” relating to deepfakes. It would last for seventy years following the death of the performer or relevant natural person. It also extends to opposing deepfakes based on moral rights.

Though Engel-Schmidt’s heart may be in the right place, the pulse of AI regulation, copyright law is an ill-fitting solution. That is not to say that it is not useful to control the dissemination of unauthorised images and videos. But these uses within the copyright system require a broader discussion of authorship and ownership which underlines the main function of copyright to incentivize and protect human creativity. Characterising it as an enforcement tool for all forms of expression, if one’s nose can be seen as such, is not simply a reductive view of copyright law, but exposes copyright to unnecessary and unfounded extension. One that commentators  have already described as providing a new line of revenue for rightsholders.

That said, extending protection to digitally imitative artistic performances is a step in the right direction. And as the copyright world struggles with how best to regulate generative AI, specifically generative content that threatens creative livelihoods through competition and ethics, an approach that empowers artists against the mystery ‘black box’ is a helpful starting point for grounding this discussion.

Perhaps Kartoon Studios took Deadpool seriously when he used the bones of Wolverine to resurrect him and (commercially?) save his universe. All that can really be said at this point is that we need to tap into our Spidey-senses and remember when legislating this purr-plexing lacuna that with great power comes great responsibility.

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