According to a court ruling, Time Warner Inc., the largest media company in the world, has to share the rights for Superman with the heirs of Jerome Siegel, who sold the rights to the superhero character 70 years ago to Detective Comics for $130.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson in Riverside decided that Siegel's widow, Joanne, and their daughter, Laura Larson, are entitled to a share of the domestic copyright, the New York Times informs.

The contract through which Jerome Siegel and his partner Joseph Shuster, sold the rights to DC in 1938, expired in 1999.

The sum of money that Warner owes to Siegel’s heirs will be established in a trial. It is not yet known whether the heirs will be paid by the Warner Inc. or only from the Detective Comics’ unit Superman profits.

Apparently, Time Warner gained about $200 million at the domestic box office with the film “Superman Returns” in 2006.

This could make Warner stop making more movies featuring the superhero in the future.

Siegel and Shuster first invented Superman when they became friends and collaborators on the Glenville High School’s newspaper in Cleveland in 1932. They wrote together the story “The Reign of Superman,” in which the famous superhero was then a villain.

Mrs. Siegel and Ms. Larson were both very excited about the court’s decision, but have not communicated any plans about the Superman character yet.

“I have lived in the shadow of this my whole life,” Ms. Larson said, according to the New York Times. “I am so happy now, I just can’t explain it.”