Is there a book on the history of creators rights in comic books?

I'm wondering why was it that big publisher owned the rights of the characters.

Both Marvel and DC operate on work-for-hire contracts, meaning that anything writers and artists create for them is automatically considered company property. Mark Evanier's biography on Jack Kirby discusses this in detail.

I swear I've heard something like this before. Let me see if I can dig it up.

EDIT: Here ya go, The Comic Book Histroy of Comics by Fred Van Lante and Ran Dunlavey

Edited by RodimusMinor on May 16th 2020 at 1:43:43 PM