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Originally Posted by ZippyDSM
doesn't really get into it, bacily from what I read whoever gave HMG the rights so they could do robotech didn't quite have the rights to do it and big west now has the rights but the rights in the US are a bit of a mess at least to the point no one wants to to disturbed it here.
Dose HMG still have the US CP if not whats the hold up on someone getting it?
the rights battle in the JP courts?
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In the Japanese courts, it was ruled that Tatsunoko only has the rights to the actual animation of SDF Macross, and nothing else. Harmony Gold dealt only with Tatsunoko, so it doesn't have a legal leg to stand on if anyone were to license any other Macross works. That's probably why Harmony Gold was so willing to cooperate with the Macross toys that are being released in North America by Toynami (it's even advertised on their Robotech.com website). However, the possibility of a US lawsuit still colors any attempt to negotiate such a license, and it will remain that way until the legal issues are completely cleared up. The problem is that a lawsuit, even one that you win, costs a lot of money, and this potential loss can greatly reduce whatever money is to be made on a property.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZippyDSM
It seems to me if HMG has rights to the fictional tech then they should have it for robotech alone and any new robotech venture they should give a small percentage of the profit to the macross rights holder since they never should have gotten it in the first place, basically they need to "separate" macross and robotech as so macross can be properly disturbed in the US without hindrance from the robotech rights holders.
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That's already happening. Starting with the Shadow Chronicles, the Robotech stories have been trying to disassociate themselves from any of the features it had in common with Macross - the only holdovers are the ties, storywise and artwork, to Mospeada. It's quite similar to the way that Battletech has tried to disassociate itself from the artwork they didn't have rights to. The Toynami agreement is a good first step to fixing the mess, but there's a long way to go (and it doesn't really help that Big West doesn't seem to want to Harmony Gold at all).