“I’m gonna score!!” Beavis & Butthead creator Mike Judge plans to reclaim copyright
Author
Martin Croft
PR & Marketing Manager
Photo by Martin Hertz on Unsplash
If Paramount Skydance didn’t have enough to worry about over with its bid for Warner Brothers Discovery currently being challenged in court by a coalition of US states’ attorney generals, it has now been hit with the shock news that… Mike Judge, creator of iconic slacked animated characters Beavis & Butthead (and also of the animated series, King of the Hill) has told Paramount he intends to reclaim his copyright on the pair.
Arguably, what’s really shocking is that Beavis & Butthead are about to hit 35…
Under Section 203 of the Copyright Act, which was passed in 1976, authors and their heirs can claim back domestic (inside the US) rights they have granted to others 35 years after making the grant.
Judge’s first animated short featuring Beavis and Butthead dates to 1992. Called “Frog Baseball,” it was picked up by Viacom’s MTV, which aired it. This led to an animated MTV series featuring the two characters, launched in 1993. Paramount is the current owner of MTV.
Section 203 says a creator or their heirs must inform whoever currently owns the rights between two and 10 years in advance of the date they intend to reclaim them. If Judge’s lawyers notified Paramount by letter in August 2026, as reported in the specialist US entertainment media, then that would suggest the earliest he could get them back would be August 2028.
Section 203 only applies to works created after 1978, and it doesn’t apply to works created ‘for hire’ (which covers many, but not necessarily all, works created as an employee of a company or as a contracted freelancer).
This may complicate matters for Paramount and Judge. Paramount revived the characters for a series called Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head in 2022 and has since made another two series, with a fourth planned for the Comedy Central Channel. Additionally, an animated film Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe was released on Paramount in 2022. Whether these works might be covered by the copyright reclamation process depends on the contract between Judge and Paramount.
The idea behind Section 203 was to protect creators who signed away rights early in their careers, only to see their ideas become hugely valuable, in some cases because the original artist became a star. The rise of platforms streaming music and digital content has highlighted the issue and the legal remedies in the US, with artists like Kris Kristoffersen, Victor Willis of the Village People, 2 Live Crew and the Eagles using it.
Other artists have used Section 203 as legal leverage to negotiate bigger shares of revenue from their works without actually reclaiming their works, reportedly including Paul McCartney, Prince, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty.
While section 203 only applies in the US, other countries have laws giving creators the right to claim copyright back, or to get a bigger share of revenue from publishers for their creative works.
The UK cited Brexit as an excuse not to implement the DSM Copyright Directive; but the UK Government was looking at the issue in 2023. At the moment there are no concrete plans to change the law. However, some creative sectors in the UK often have them built in to contracts. An example would be publishing, where book contracts usually give an author the right to reclaim their works if the publisher is no longer printing them.
