Seto Kaiba

Nah, you've missed the whole purpose of their monitoring activities... it's so they can actively seek out those members who are expressing dangerous ideas that might lead to them running the franchise better, producing better products, and having better customer service, and quash them so they can't express those views on Robotech.com. Apparently Steve Yun and Kevin McKeever do.

That's complete and utter horsecrap. He's just lazy. I know plenty of guys with large hands who have no problems typing normally, even on teeny little netbooks. He types all in caps for the same reason he never spellchecks what he writes... he's lazy. He got banned from Robotech.com by MEMO here for trying to pick a fight with me, some other users, and RobotechX administrator SIGHUP. MEMO deleted his post though. He got banned from RobotechX.com by SIGHUP here, also for trying to derail the thread in order to start a flame-war.

Yeah, it's pretty much inevitable that those three threads'll be closed down sooner rather than later. As long as Steve leaves things in the hands of MEMO1DOMINION and Maverick_LSC, it's going to be impossible to have a rational discussion about the legalities, let alone a serious one. I'm frankly amazed that yoshii has lasted this long, since all he does is bitch about how if they don't use the original Macross designs it'll be "Robot Tech", not Robotech. It probably won't be long until Maverick_LSC starts to see some other member who actually knows what they're talking about as a threat to his credibility, and that person'll get the boot too. Nah, it'd only be like that if we had some easy way to tell when they were getting ready to give us the boot for expressing views that make them uncomfortable. Steve and co. seem to have adopted a very Stalinist viewpoint of managing the fanbase... that the source of all problems is man, and that eliminating the problem at its source is the most efficient way to do things... "no man, no problem" as that line of reasoning goes. It looks like, despite being banned, HappyPenguins's website (which openly criticizes Harmony Gold) is still under surveillance by someone at Harmony Gold. There're oddly frequent hits from the same computer in LA.

Right around the time Macross Chronicle #21 came out, if memory serves. He'd certainly be easier to ignore, wouldn't he?

It would probably be a mistake to say that he "runs" RobotechX at all... he might pay the hosting bill, but the actual administrative work is done by someone else. For all practical purposes, MEMO's just an incredibly obnoxious global moderator. Exactly the same as he is on Robotech.com. Though, just like on Robotech.com, he desperately wants to stop people from pointing out that Harmony Gold doesn't own the intellectual property rights to Macross, and thus cannot use Macross designs in future cinematic works. While he might deny it, the general assessment of his behavior among those Robotech who have to put up with him is that he's hoping that if he keeps this up Harmony Gold'll offer him a job. Oh, they'd still be BAD, they'd just be easier to read. Y'know, I offered to pay him if he'd take care of a few important Macross II sheets in Macross Chronicle for me, since he translates faster than I do, but he shot me down...

It seems like whenever I start to think there's no reason for this thread to continue, someone posts something like this and I bust out laughing. This may very well be the most accurate and succinct summary of the situation with MEMO that anyone has ever written. Really, at this point I'm not even trying to prove him wrong anymore... I'm just doing it for the lulz. More often than not, MEMO's knee-jerk attempts to prove me wrong are unintentionally hilarious circular arguments and the sort of moon logic that would lead one to conclude that 2+2 equals "fish". I don't think he realizes it, but in the course of this long-running debate about Macross rights, MEMO has so thoroughly destroyed his own credibility that I very much doubt there's anyone left who takes him seriously. He's reached a level of respectability normally reserved for cranks and the sort of conspiracy theorists who wear tinfoil hats. Now that his last great supporter, Pizza the Hutt, has been banned on Robotech.com and has achieved the distinction of being the first person to ever be banned from RobotechX, I wonder if he'll finally shut up.

I like my answer better... this thread IS about Robotech after all...

Are the word(s) you're looking for "being MEMO1DOMINION"? Seriously tho, Wanz, check your facts before you post. Google is your friend... Babelfish, not so much... I ran one of the court documents thru it just for yuks earlier, and DAMN did it ever produce some hilarious grammar. Yeah, but we can definitely see Harmony Gold adopting a passive role in the creative process... rubber-stamping any old crap that Warner Bros comes up with after the live-action movie in exchange for a nice big payoff on the royalties. It's probably more cost-effective that way.

Well, THERE'S your problem... when dealing with information from Robotech.com, assume that everything you read is a lie, or at the very least that it's horribly inaccurate, until proven otherwise. I still haven't forgotten the virus warning one user posted in The Lounge over there. He made a huge fuss about a new variant of the W32.Virut family of viruses, and then failed spectacularly to produce any proof that such a threat existed, finally falling back on the claim of having exclusive, insider knowledge of the goings-on at Microsoft, Symantec, and McAfee, and that he worked as a freelance viral code engineer for all three companies at the same time, and that he worked as a hotel manager for his day job just because he didn't like the corporate politics. He eventually fell back on insisting that news of the threat would be released "any day now", before the thread got locked. I can only imagine what drove him to post that... maybe he was gullible enough to believe one of the virus warning chain letters that was going around,

I hadn't seen this before either... it looks like one of the cases where Tatsunoko tried to claim ownership of the Macross "brand", only to be shot down by the courts. In this case, the particular claim appears to be that distribution of Macross Zero DVDs and merchandise is a violation of their rights. It looks like their argument was that because Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a distinctive and well-known title, that Big West/Bandai is violating some laws with regard to preventing of unfair competition. Tatsunoko's claims were dismissed by the court, and they got stuck with the bill too. Yeah, given their past behavior and remarks, it looks like Big West doesn't really consider the pitifully small western market to be worth the time and effort right now.

Actually... they managed to find the Earth at least four times with large-scale fleets, and an unspecified but significant number of times with smaller fleet strengths. The major ones were in 2009-2010, 2036, 2037, 2054, and possibly 2082. There's a whole host of minor ones between 2010 and 2030. I'm inclined to think the opposite... that had it not followed directly on from the awesomeness that was Macross: Do You Remember Love?, it would've been received a lot better. It was, after all, a show with an average-ish story and many good aspects, trying to succeed to the title of a movie that was exceptional in most respects.

Y'know, if they had actually pursued that route and tried to quantify spirita scientifically like they did with the fold-wave stomach flu (v-type bacteria/virus?), I probably would've liked Macross 7 a lot more, but all we really got was (´ﾟ∀ﾟ)つ IT IS DELICIOUS SPIRITUAL ENERGY YOU MUST EAT IT, and no further explanation that that. I don't think you can really go that route with spirita or the v-type bacteria since they're both supposedly naturally-occurring, non-technological macguffins. It doesn't really address my core concern, that there really is no ongoing threat in the main continuity like there is in Macross II. By the end of the series, the alien menace has seen the errors of its ways, packed up, and shipped off to Unspecifiedistan, never to be seen again. While there are, at least in theory, hundreds upon hundreds of Zentradi fleets still hunting the Supervision Army across the galaxy, they all seem to have gone on holiday and haven't troubled humanity since. The ongoing Zentradi threat is one of the aspects I love best about the Macross II universe... the Zentradi and Meltrandi don't just fade into history. They're still a very real, recurring threat clear through to 2082, with at least three more major invasions that decimate the U.N. Spacy's forces, and a whole host of minor skirmishes. It really drives home the significance of the Zentradi threat, the mind-boggling scope of the Protoculture's fall, and the relative insignificance of humanity in the grand scheme of things... to say nothing of the power of music, and the importance of compromise, understanding, etc. It doesn't hurt my feelings any that the prequels gave Komilia the spotlight as an adult, or that they showed the U.N. Spacy while it was still picking up the pieces in the wake of Space War 1, two things that main-continuity Macross never really did. Heck, come to think of it, the VF-4 getting the spotlight was pretty damn cool too.

It made sense to me too, at least from a practical standpoint... I do wish Kawamori had been a bit truer to the themes of the original with Macross Plus and the shows that followed it, and I REALLY wish he'd thought twice about Macross 7, but I certainly don't resent him for doing what he did. He had his own story he wanted to tell, with its own particular merits. So instead of a non-canon movie, we have a second, essentially self-contained parallel universe (ala Gundam's AU titles) with its own history and everything, and I'm totally fine with that. There are some who aren't, but hey, everybody's entitled to their opinion. Like I said, my problem with the main continuity's use of song as a weapon isn't the song itself, it's the various flavors of magic attached to it in later generation Macross shows... like Macross 7's spirita, the fold wave-emitting stomach flu from Macross Frontier, or whatever goddamn voodoo Sara used to levitate rocks in her birthday suit in Macross Zero. That and the fact that once they've bested an enemy with the magical song power du jour, the threat is neutralized once and for all... the aliens usually just pack up and leave. The only potentially recurring threat left is the Zentradi, and they were demoted to comic relief status starting in Macross 7. So much for "1000 fleets still roaming the galaxy"... That's one of the things I really love about the Macross II continuity... the Zentradi and the Meltrandi are still a very real threat to humanity, what with the major and minor fleet engagements every few years from 2010 to 2055, at least one of which did horrendous near-SW1-level damage to the U.N. Spacy, and a couple more after that.

Personally, I would prefer to keep Macross II as far removed from the main continuity's various flavors of pseudo-magical singing as humanly possible. Let it be its own universe, and maybe they'll revisit it and flesh it out more once they run out of evil aliens for humanity to militarily neuter and then befriend with song in the main continuity.

Actually, they're not that difficult to understand at all. The concepts involved are fairly simple, it's just that any attempt to accurately explain how it all fits together turns into a small novel by the time you're done. As to why Big West can't distribute Macross products in the west, that's actually not a direct result of the litigation at all... while Big West and Tatsunoko were fighting it out in the courts, Harmony Gold went and got a trademark on the name "Macross" in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany. So, in order for new Macross stuff to be released on those regions, the distributor who licensed the show would have to get permission from Harmony Gold to use that trademarked name. Big West apparently takes a dim view of that, so here we are. That's why we haven't had any more Macross releases since Macross Plus. It's also been suggested that the music royalties for a heavily music-driven show like Macross 7 and/or Macross Frontier would also be an obstacle.

Compiling the court documents we have into a simple, itemized list: 25 February 2002 Ruling (Studio Nue owns the 41 disputed designs) http://www.courts.go.jp/search/jhsp0030?ac...mp;hanreiKbn=06 02 October 2002 Appeal (Tatsunoko's appeal of the above - rejected) http://www.courts.go.jp/search/jhsp0030?ac...mp;hanreiKbn=06 20 January 2003 Ruling (Tatsunoko owns economic rights to Ep1-36) (Dug up for me by Talos) http://www.courts.go.jp/search/jhsp0030?ac...mp;hanreiKbn=06 25 September 2003 Appeal (Studio Nue's appeal of the above - rejected) http://www.courts.go.jp/search/jhsp0030?ac...mp;hanreiKbn=06 01 July 2004 Ruling (Tatsunoko's demand for restitution against Big West & Bandai - rejected) http://www.courts.go.jp/search/jhsp0030?ac...mp;hanreiKbn=06 27 October 2005 Appeal (Tatsunoko's appeal of the above - rejected) http://www.courts.go.jp/search/jhsp0030?ac...mp;hanreiKbn=06

No, the dates are wrong, those are dated 1 July 2004, 27 October 2005, and 2 October 2002 respectively... the dates we're looking for are 20 January 2003 (平成15年01月20日) and 25 September 2003 (平成15年09月25日). I'm just skimming these, but the first one seems to be one of Tatsunoko's rejected attempts to seek restitution from Big West and Bandai Visual for subsequently produced Macross shows, which the courts naturally shot down. The second is (apparently) Tatsunoko's appeal of the previously mentioned ruling (also rejected). The third is apparently Tatsunoko's appeal of the 2002 ruling (also rejected).

Actually, I'm pretty sure That's a report on Studio Nue's appeal of the 20 January 2003 court ruling (upheld by Tokyo High Court on 25 September 2003) where they established that Tatsunoko owned the economic rights to the footage, but that Big West's copyrights on the intellectual property were separate. I'd look it up for myself, but the machine I'm currently using has no Eastern language support, so the text on the court webpage comes out as a stream of unreadable tokenized gibberish. I've got the text for the 2002 ruling bookmarked again, but I lost my bookmark for the 2003 ruling when my machine died... so if someone could dig it up for me, I'd really appreciate it. (if it helps, as I said, the ruling at district court level was dated 1/20/2003, and upheld by the high court on 9/25/2003). EDIT: Yep, that's the report on the Supreme Court shooting down Studio Nue's appeal of the 2003 ruling.

Yes, I am. The courts most definitely shot down Tatsunoko's claims of having rights to Macross derivatives, and their attempt to claim ownership of the Macross "brand" as well. As such, Big West does not have to go through Tatsunoko for licensing of Macross derivatives, and they don't have to give them a cut of the profits either... thought they ARE obligated to share profits obtained from sales of the original series in the domestic (Japan) market. The "certain rights" that the courts found Tatsunoko DID own were (specifically) those rights they had been given under the terms of their contract with Big West (namely, the international film distribution and merchandising rights, excluding Japan), and the economic rights to the footage of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series (while at the same time making it perfectly clear that Tatsunoko's copyright on the footage did not extend to the copyrighted intellectual property created by Big West for the series).

*facedesk* Yeah, I'd noticed a few Macross II-isms in the glossary sheets, but I'm after something a bit more substantial than that. (Also, yes, the romanization is "GERWALKroid")

I really enjoyed Macross II: Lovers Again. It's one of my favorite Macross titles. The six-episode OVA format was definitely too short for the show's creators to fully realize the story, so it gets a bit rushed towards the end. Nevertheless, it was the last Macross show to really carry on the themes and tone of the original series and DYRL. For me, the prequels are also particularly interesting, since they depict what I feel is a more believable post-SW1 Macross universe where the Zentradi and Meltrandi still pose a very real threat. The universe as a whole is influenced a bit more strongly by Gundam than the "main continuity", which I think actually works pretty well for the story. Mikimoto's character designs for the series were, I think, some of his best work (and I think he particularly liked the flightsuits he did for the prequels, since he keeps reusing them in main-timeline Macross manga). The mechanical designs done by Koichi Ohata, Kazumi Fujita, and co. are my favorite designs in all of Macross... particularly the VF-2SS Valkyrie II. Really, I think the biggest factors going against Macross II were that it was following on from Macross: Do You Remember Love?, which for many fans is the Macross gold standard, and that because of that, the average story was not as well-received as it would've been otherwise. 'course, I've put a lot of time and effort into digging up all the esoterica about the Macross II alternate universe, since the English-language publications really didn't cover most of the interesting stuff. For a while now I've been working on a website to collect all that rare and little-known information into a single, comprehensive reference collection covering the entire alternate universe. It's still a ways from being complete, but thanks to the MW community, I've made some great strides over the past year or so. (I've also put in a bit of work for the Macross Mecha Manual's Macross II section)

Um... there's a lot of things wrong with what you've posted here... that's not what the courts concluded at all. In fact, that's the exact opposite of what the courts found. It's true that Harmony Gold's attempts to bar Macross merchandise from the US in 1999-2000 were a major factor in starting the whole legal battle between Big West and Tatsunoko, but the courts ruled that Tatsunoko has no control over Macross derivatives (sequels, prequels, etc.). They aren't entitled to a cut of international sales, or anything else like that. The problem is that while the courts were sorting the whole thing out, Harmony Gold had gone and filed for a trademark on the name "Macross" in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany... and THAT is what's keeping Macross products out of the hands of western audiences right now. As far as Tatsunoko goes, the courts found that their rights were limited to the rights they'd been given by Big West under contract (international film distribution and merchandising rights for the original series excluding Japan), and the economic rights to the original series (but not to the Big West-owned intellectual property used in it).

Palladium's tried a few times to merge the designs of the VF-1 and non-Macross mecha for the various editions of their Robotech RPG. The end result is usually too painful the look at, both because the design is hideous, and because the quality of the art is generally abysmal. I remember their "VF-1V Vindicator" (the horrible bastard offspring of a VF-1 and a AFC-01), and Harmony Gold's own attempts to give the Inbit/Invid a transforming fighter with a VF-1-esque transformation... the Invid Overlord.

Given Harmony Gold's past behavior and the current bad blood between the two companies, I really don't see anything objectionable about them taking the necessary steps to ensure that their property remains out of Harmony Gold's hands.

That seems to be his default means of trying to dismiss anything we say that disagrees with his particular worldview. Nah, they've been doing that for decades already, they don't need outside help... the continuation novels, the various spinoff comics and the long-running Sentinels comics, and now Prelude and Shadow Chronicles itself. Harmony Gold just doesn't have the artistic integrity to let those characters go. They've built every major attempt to continue the series (except one) around them, and they depend on those few, tired, overused characters to sell the remainder of the "Shadow Saga", assuming it ever gets made. If they did get rid of those characters, the majority of the tiny, fragmented Robotech fanbase would have no reason to keep watching.