Marvel vs. Tariff Law
A Story You Will Want To Hear!
Some of us here at ComicRelated.com are avid listeners of the RadioLab podcast. As we drove into the Comic Related offices earlier this week, we were listing to one of the podcast's "short" episodes. These usually run 15-20 minutes and tell quicker stories. In this podcast "short", a strange twist of legal taxonomy causes a dispute over whether Marvel Comics' X-Men action figures are toys or dolls and sparks a court case about what it means to be human that lasted for years!
Think you know the full story? Give this one a listen. You are in for a treat!
Total running time - 16 min, 17 sec
Full Show Description:
Reporter Ike Sriskandarajah tells Jad and Robert a story about two international trade lawyers, Sherry Singer and Indie Singh, who noticed something interesting while looking at a book of tariff classifications. "Dolls," which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of "toys," which represent something not human - such as robots, monsters, or demons. As soon as they read that, Sherry and Indie saw dollar signs. it just so happened that one of their clients, Marvel Comics, was importing its action figures as dolls. And one set of action figures really piqued Sherry and Indie's interest: The XMEN, normal humans who, at around puberty, start to change in ways that give them strange powers.
So Sherry and Indie went down to the customs office with a bag of XMEN action figures to convince the US government that these mutants are NOT human. That argument eventually became a court case that went on for years. Joe Liebman, former international trade attorney for the US Department of Justice,helps us understand the government's side. And Ike, with help from director and producer Bryan Singer, reflects on the story of the XMEN, and tells us why this case is so poignant for anyone who's fought to be different without being cast as an outsider.
Special Guests: Bryan Singer
Full Show Notes via RadioLab: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2011/dec/22/mutant-rights/
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