the white drew carey

By US copyright law, they no longer have any legal recourse to take against Mac2 and Plus, regardless of what their contract with Tatsunoko may or may not say. If you ignore it, you lose it. Simple as that. And Yamato Lover: Why quote me? I wasn't making accusations, just offering a valid use for multiple accounts. But here's the tricky part, the statute of limitations could be altered, or not even apply here: 1- The statute of limitations, in regards to copyrights, allows for the possibility that a company is not always aware of when it's copyrights are being infringed. It clearly states that it is possible for the countdown on the statute of limitations to begin once the company has gained knowledge of copyright infringement and that it doesn't always begin on the actual date of infringement. In other words, HG could've attmpted to prove in court that A- They were "understaffed" at the time of infringement and therefore unaware of it, B- Now they "know" an infringing product has been released and C- Utilize the strong possibility that their newly found "knowledge" lands them within the timeframe of the statute of limitations, and therefore can litigate against Manga Video for said infringememt.* To our knowledge, this is something HG did not even attempt to look into. Why? Maybe because they actually don't own the rights they say they do and Manga wasn't infringing on anyone. 2- How could the statute of limitations not even apply here? The law where copyright infringement is concerned is used for when someone utilizes an aspect of your copyright without permission. HG has never copyrighted any aspect of Macross Plus. Manga has. If HG's claims are correct, then Manga has illegally copyrighted something that is not their's. The law requires that situations like this be settled. The problem for HG is that it's hard to settle a copyright infringement case when you don't even have a copyright to infringe. And the statute of limitations will not come into play here because Manga's release of Mac+ wasn't a one-time deal. They are still producing copies and distributing them for sale. *Some people argue that if HG was short-staffed, then they couldn't possibly afford a lawyer to go after Manga at the time of the Mac+ release or even once they found out. The simple business and legal fact remains that if they could prove they actually owned those rights (as they say they do), then it would've been a legal slamdunk and they would've received damages and, it's strongly possible, that Manga would've had to cover their legal fees. 3 lawyers I've talked to about this (one is in IP law) said ,that if their claims were as solid as they think, a lawyer might've gone for the "no up-front fees" route (because HG was so poor and weak at the time) and take a cut from the final winnings. edit: spelling and punksuashion

I wouldn't mind some storylines set in the mid-20's early 30's. Max, Millia and the kids were very popular in video games, I'm sure an OAV highlighting a major event for The Dancing Skulls would be nifty. Then we could see my favorite, the VF-9 Cutlass, going at it.

something's not right here...

This is just speculation here, but I'm guessing Yellow Dancer is supposed to be old here and maybe he's supposed to be recounting the story. That could be he looks like he's got a cold and a stuffy nose. *sniffle* Maybe they are trying to make him look "old".

How come he looks like Peter Cushing with long purple hair? So we get to see HG's new Gamma fighter again, eh? The drawing has a very 80's feel to it, don't you think?

It kind of makes you wonder why HG, whom one would suspect has assets superior to Blasto-Toys at the very least, backed down so quickly when Blasto's lawyer demanded proof of their ownership.

No worries, just clarifying. I don't think it's moot. Questions have been asked about how DYRL, MacII and Mac+ were released outside of Japan without HG's consent. To simply believe Tommy Yune/HG's version of events, in the face of proven facts (see Effect's post above) is extremely credulous, not to mention in no way "severely" speculative. Once again, publicly available facts give credibility to speculation that HG, in fact, has never owned those rights. If HG was a dormant company during the time of their supposed "understaffing", that would be one thing. But the record shows (see Effect's post above) that HG was not only releasing products, but they were releasing products into the very Anime market that, supposedly, they were too understaffed to pay attention to at the time. True. HG has been successful in blocking Int'l releases of Macross-related merchandise, but only if you look at it a certain way. In 2000 Toycom announced it would be releasing toys based on Macross Plus. At this time, HG announces, for the first time ever, that they own everything Macross. As of yet, no company who has licensed a Macross product has actually taken HG to court to challenge this. And for good reason, because the mothership (BigWest) was busy preparing to take, and then challenging, Tatsunoko to court to determine the status of Macross ownership. True, Bandai tried to release VF-X2, but HG said they would block it. So Bandai after some effort backed down to see what would happen in the Japanese courts. So yes, that was a success. Then HG also attempts to block Macross toys imported from Japan. A retailer whom they had threatened with a Cease and Desist letter fires back with a lawyer. When that lawyer asks HG to prove their claims, they refuse to do so. Not a success. This act also works to cast doubts on HG's claims. In layperson's terms, they tried to start a fight, and then chickened out when someone accepted the thrown gauntlet. This also can lead to speculation that HG was saying things that, essentially, aren't true.

Specifically on this point: Also remember that a lawyer was retained when HG went after the retailers and when that Lawyer requested proof from HG to their claims, they refused to provide it. This is another point that leads many of us to think HG is lying. As has been speculated before, many think HG was just attempting to clear the market for the release of the MPC.

The MPC topic is pinned simply to concentrate all MPC discussion into one thread. Before this was done there were MPC threads popping up left and right. I don't think it's going anywhere. Any models not Macross should go into Other Anime and Sci-fi. If the topic is interesting enough, it will survive. I wouldn't mind seeing a MOSPEADA models thread. I really dig the mecha designs... especially for the Inbit.

Oops, forgot to finish up... Anyhoo, what I meant to end that bit of rambling with was my opinion that Tommy Yune stated that explanation at the RT Panel simply to reassure RT fans that RT was not going to be taken away from them.

At a Robotech Panel in 2002 (what convention was it again?), Tommy Yune stated that Macross Plus was released without HG's knowledge. He explained how Haim Saban had "stolen" most of HG's employees and due to the subsequent understaffing, M+ slipped in under HG's nose. And by the time they found out it was released, the statute of limitations had already expired. This doesn't explain two things: 1) How DYRL and Macross II were licensed and released well beforehand without a peep from HG. 2) How HG still managed to license and develop RT at the time despite being so horribly understaffed. These being mainly RT comics and the abandoned N64 game, Robotech: Crystal Dreams. In no way has HG or any of their representatives attempted to answer question #1. Others have defended HG on #2 by providing explanations such as: A- Just because a company is licensing a product doesn't mean they know what's happening in that product's market, or... B- (this one gets me) neither Macross II or Macross Plus were very big releases*. *this particular person then went on to ask me if either had been advertised in the major entertainment publications or had posters up all over the place. I explained that while MacII or Mac+ were definitely NOT big releases in the American entertainment industry, they WERE, in fact, very big releases in America's ANIME industry.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Megaroad-01 is buried in concrete somewhere in Giants Stadium... 20th Anniversary of DYRL would be awesome. And a subtitle track would be wonderful. As Anubis stated, English subs on R2 releases is becoming more common. Hmmm...

Umm... No. I don't think myself, or anyone I know would've been confused. We knew Robotech was on at 6am and that we could watch it before we had to leave for school. Many of us were confused by the whole change in the show from Macross saga, to masters, to New Generation (and why the animation kept changing. What was really sad were the kids who missed a couple of episodes in a row.. my friend Glenn comes to mind. He missed the last episode of "The Macross Saga" and came back at the second episode of Masters. He came to school incredibly confused wondering what the hell happened and why were they showing a different show under the Robotech moniker?!? It didn't help that Robotech bombed in my area (Chicago) and only showed once through on UHF channel 57 out of Rockford. Luckily for me, a Japanese-American family moved into the neighborhood and the two brothers were really into anime. They schooled me on this Robotech thing and what it was really about.

Oh... that's what you meant. The icons!!! Silly me! I know I had something around here that explained how to convert Mac icons into Windows. Let me see what I can do and I'll PM you, OK Macross_Fanboy?

All's fair in Love and... Well, you know what I mean!!!

DNA- Look up a couple of replies to my last post. I know Agent One is right, I've seen the program as well. I'm just not clear as to the actual release date of the VHS.

"Better" ?!? Why the heck does she have open-toe high-heels?!? They're trying to work off of Halle Berry's "sexy" factor. But it just doesn't work. Her pants look like they were stolen from the corpse of the last Poison groupie to grace this Earth!!! This is going to be terrible...

This was way after the program had originally aired on TV. Streamline (which I thinks was run by Carl Macek at the time) attempted to release The Macross Perfect Collection on video tape in the early 90's. As you stated, it would showcase the original Japanese episode, subtitled, along with the Robotech version. But this was all said and done well after anyone who still cared about Robotech had already found out the whole story behind it.

Well, not being able to read Japanese, I had to rely on the translated credits on the AnimeIgo disks. According to those, the Director for ep. 13 was Matsuzaki Ken'Ichi. I don't see Ippei Kuri's name anywhere. All I can find for actual people under producer is three names listed under "Assistant Producer", none of which are Kenji Yoshida (Matsuzaki Ken'Ichi is one of them). Other than that, the only listing as "Produced By:" Has Mainichi Broadcast System, Tatsunoko Productions and Animefriend. Now, I cannot attest to whether or not these credits reflect what is shown for each episode.

I can't answer the demand question, but I don't see why HG cannot export the MPC Alphas over to Japan. HG has been partners with Tatsunoko since the start of Robotech. Tatsunoko is the Japanese company who owns MOSPEADA and, in turn, licensed it to HG. So I don't think they're going to cause any beef about it as long as the correct licensing rights are paid and such. The clincher is that, probably, no one in Japan knows what an Alpha is. So it's entirely possible that it will be released as the MPC Legioss. Therefore causing another "collector's item", if you will. As to this question... you'll have to read through this whole thread and come up with your own conclusions.

Ummm... I think you're missing a very big, and important chunk of the story here. You do realise that BigWest was not the company in charge of the overseas aspect of the Macross TV series? Tatsunoko holds the international distribution rights to the SDF: Macross TV series as per the memorandum. Arguing whether or not BigWest "screwed up" (which is basically what your saying) and that HG "heroically" stepped in and gave the world Macross is a moot point at best. BigWest knew then, as they know now, that the distribution of the original TV series was always out of their hands. True, at the time they probably didn't care too much for the int'l market. The simple fact that both the TV series and DYRL were hacked up and screwed over by the first companies outside of Japan to license them probably didn't help matters. It wasn't until fans who were also business-people started to import Anime while faithfully, at least in the attempt , keeping the stories intact did anime actually start to grow as a viable market here in the U.S. That, coupled with Macross' surprising popularity in the face of Robotech, was probably what convinced BigWest that it was time for the franchise to leave the nest as it was meant to seen- as Macross. I'm sorry this statement seems like it came from an HG glory hound. You seem to be making a lot of statements for someone who isn't showing much knowledge of RT's history and/or general business practices. A- Business such as you're describing is all done by licensing and other carefully thought out factors. Not by kickbacks because "we released it first." B- HG was all about money. Carl Macek was probably the only person who cared to some degree about the anime itself. HG, on the other hand, got a package deal from Tatsunoko with the three series they made into Robotech. "Robotech" itself was made up by Revell, who had purchased the distribution rights for many model kitsbased on mecha from anime. HG "went along" with Revell in order to secure an immediate tie-in with their products.

If I understand correctly, the Slide Card is a set up where you remove only the cover for the disk tray. This card allows you to use a boot disk, slide it out and then put in the disk you want to play. I guess it's pretty nice because you don't have to open your PS2 at all, and you can easily replace the cover of the disk tray whenever you feel the need.

Nope. It is a tie-in for the new game. You get promoted out of Skull and into this squadron with a Longhorn logo. Their squadron "color" is purple. Think about it for a bit; it could be worst...Minmay-Pink Helmet ! !?? Actually, I don't mind the color at all. I kind of like it, because it's something different.

Ummm... I don't understand your question. I drew the Max Jenius M3 picture myself. Maybe. I'm ona bit of a haitus at the moment, but my current project is a TV Kakazaki (suggested by Dangard Ace). I'll keep it in mind because A- I love the VF-4 (some people love it, some hate it), and B- Because I love Millia.

Nope. It is a tie-in for the new game. You get promoted out of Skull and into this squadron with a Longhorn logo. Their squadron "color" is purple.