Harmony Gold suing Tatsunoko

[Einherjar]

33 minutes ago, jenius said:

Again, I would also point out that HG had nothing to do with making a video game or releasing it at any point any where. HG doesn't make anything... really. 

If that is the MO that resulted in stuff like Remix happening, I’d believe it.  Have a hard time believing they would recruit some rando comic book company and specifically dictate them to do something that off the rails and controversial to their own franchise.

[jenius]

24 minutes ago, Einherjar said:

If that is the MO that resulted in stuff like Remix happening, I’d believe it.  Have a hard time believing they would recruit some rando comic book company and specifically dictate them to do something that off the rails and controversial to their own franchise.

I imagine there was more conversations for that since it involves some strange stuff.

[Seto Kaiba]

55 minutes ago, Einherjar said:

If that is the MO that resulted in stuff like Remix happening, I’d believe it.

It wasn't always... you could fairly say they fell back into bad old habits once animated Robotech kicked up its heels and died for a second time.

They first fell into the bad habit of letting any rando willing to cut them a check license Robotech a few years after Macek's brilliant direction steered Robotech II: the Sentinels and the Robotech: the Untold Story movie into their early and shallow graves.  Nobody gave a toss about the property anymore, so they started licensing it to all comers in the name of making a quick buck and the only oversight they ever exercised was to cut licensees off when sales slipped to the point that they were no longer collecting a decent amount from royalties.

When they tried to reinvent and relaunch the series as a serious anime property c.2000, they actually made a commendable effort to exercise proper oversight and quality control over what their licensees were putting out.  They even went to the trouble of keeping previously-problematic licensees who'd once again obtained licenses (Palladium Books) on a short leash for a while there.  It lasted about eleven years.  Right around the time the trademark registration for the Shadow Chronicles sequel lapsed in late 2011, they gave up on overseeing licensees and the quality tanked.  Past that point is when we started seeing pure garbage being churned out again like the Robotech/Voltron crossover comic, the RPG putting out a glorified monster manual and then a bad adaptation of the Imai Files, the totally-unmanaged Robotech RPG Tactics fiasco, etc. etc.

 

Quote

Have a hard time believing they would recruit some rando comic book company and specifically dictate them to do something that off the rails and controversial to their own franchise.

Five'll get you twenty that they're the ones who insisted on having cameos by all the animated Robotech titles in the finale... to counter fan complaints that the comic was taking the piss out of "real" Robotech.  Nobody VOLUNTARILY references Robotech 3000 unless it's to apologize for it.  Even Carl Macek.

 

 

So yeah, with the Robotech merchandising situation being what it is and the animated Robotech series and Robotech comics being dead in the water, this move to negotiate definitely feels like Harmony Gold is looking for the exit.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[JB0]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

Even that implies too much involvement. They didn't pay anyone anything. They will make some sliver of profits but it's not like they proposed the game maker work on this project. I bet the rights for the games have been maintained but beyond that, they probably only receive emails about it.. they're not actively doing anything. They get notified so they can help hype things (and thus earn their nickels) but that's about it. 

That's what struck me as weird. As near as I can tell, the companies involved with the GameBoy game are all dead(Take 2 bought publisher TDK Mediactive, and developer Lucky Chicken seems to have just died and vanished). 

...

Ah.

Digging further, the company responsible for the Switch port is founded by the founders of Lucky Chicken. That explains that. I guess they took the assets with them, and then called HG up and asked for a license to re-release the game. And HG being HG, they just rubberstamped it once they were assured it was going on, like, actual game consoles and not as a freeware download on a fansite.

[Gerli]

41 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

this move to negotiate definitely feels like Harmony Gold is looking for the exit.

Dios te oiga.

[M'Kyuun]

Question for @Seto Kaiba: To wrest the hold that HG exercises over the Macross trademark, and thus all related merch in the West, why can't Big West, Bandai, Arcadia, etc take them to task legally over monopolizing the market, especially since HG do so little with it by comparison?  I'm not familiar with monopoly law, but I'm curious as to whether it could be applicable in this case. 

I certainly hope HG doesn't receive a big payday for their bad behavior over the years. They just need to shutter under the weight of increasing market and legal pressure from the actual owners of the franchise. One way or the other, though, I hope to see Macross here in the US with Big West on the box, and Harmony Gold a fading bad memory.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Question for @Seto Kaiba: To wrest the hold that HG exercises over the Macross trademark, and thus all related merch in the West, why can't Big West, Bandai, Arcadia, etc take them to task legally over monopolizing the market, especially since HG do so little with it by comparison?  I'm not familiar with monopoly law, but I'm curious as to whether it could be applicable in this case. 

Antitrust laws apply when a company is engaging in anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviors like price-fixing or [having/attempting to have] a monopoly on a particular market or industry.  The beef between Macross's owners and Harmony Gold is a matter of intellectual property law.  Specifically, trademark law.

When Harmony Gold was preparing to relaunch the Robotech franchise c.1999, they realized that they were facing the prospect of Robotech having to compete against Macross's own sequels and the higher-quality merchandise that was being imported from Japan.  They initially (and mistakenly, according to them) claimed that their license gave them the exclusive rights to ALL of Macross rather than just the original series and sent a bunch of Cease and Desists to toy importers.  Because their claim was groundless, that ultimately kicked off the copyright review filings in the Japanese courts so all parties could be assured of who owned what.  Their fallback was filing for trademark registration on the word Macross, the series title card, and various other distinctive odds and ends as a means of ensuring they AND ONLY THEY could legally use those specific marks in the United States.  Trademarks offer the owner/registrant of the trademark legal protection of a sign, design, name, or expression that distinctively identifies a particular product or service.  

The reason that Big West can't just go and challenge Harmony Gold's trademarks on Macross's name and logos in the US the way they could in China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union is that trademark law here is written somewhat differently.  US trademark law gives precedence to the first party to use the trademark in actual commerce in the US when disputes arise.  Other countries, like the ones where Big West successfully challenged HG's trademarks, have provisions that cover corner cases like the first user not being the actual owner and give precedence to the actual owner of the brand/product/property.  

The other thing about trademarks is that, in order to register them, you have to actually be using the mark in commerce.  You can file for registration of a trademark before you first use it in commerce, but you have to actually be using it in order for registration to be granted and you have to keep using it for periodic renewal of the trademark registration.  That is why Harmony Gold keeps producing what little merch it does even it doesn't sell well... they need to be able to demonstrate they're using the trademarks to renew them.

 

 

6 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I certainly hope HG doesn't receive a big payday for their bad behavior over the years. They just need to shutter under the weight of increasing market and legal pressure from the actual owners of the franchise. One way or the other, though, I hope to see Macross here in the US with Big West on the box, and Harmony Gold a fading bad memory.

Harmony Gold's main business is rental property management in SoCal, so they're in no risk of going out of business if Robotech goes belly-up.  Film production and licensing is, for practical intents and purposes, more a hobby for them than anything.  People who know about Frank Agrama's criminal history, of course, have very good reason to suspect that the "hobby" is more for the purposes of money laundering to facilitate tax evasion.  

At the end of the day, as long as Harmony Gold is gone from the picture and Robotech is finally laid to rest I'll be happy.  Even if they have to buy out Harmony Gold's license and so on to do it.

[pengbuzz]

21 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Can I just briefly say I love your screenname, @Rhubarbarian?

 

All told, I think the main reason that Harmony Gold has started double-branding a lot of its merchandise and making the Macross logo increasingly prominent is because there just aren't enough Robotech fans left to sustain their merchandise lines otherwise.  They're still trying to offload limited edition toys that were made over a decade ago, and they're not foolish enough to think the same few hundred fans are going to repeatedly spend thousands of dollars on gaudy, overpriced paperweights Kidslogic was making without winding up in trouble with the missus.  They're trying to improve their sales by introducing a low-cost alternative to the admittedly expensive and difficult-to-obtain Macross toys from the bigger outfits like Bandai or Arcadia.

Said toys which are lagging behind the current crop of VF's that have far better detailing, transformation schemes and  aren't just trapped in SDFM, to mention a few points of my own...

[Seto Kaiba]

41 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Said toys which are lagging behind the current crop of VF's that have far better detailing, transformation schemes and  aren't just trapped in SDFM, to mention a few points of my own...

Well, yeah... naturally.

Harmony Gold takes excruciating care to stay within the bounds of what its license permits it to use in merchandising to avoid provoking any kind of litigation from Big West, so their options are much more limited.  They're also working with a much shallower pool of prospective licensees given that Robotech's relative obscurity and small fanbase make for a much lower expected sales volume and smaller return on investment.  That means fewer prospective licensees, smaller or less skilled companies, and either a lower quality product because corners get cut to reduce development and manufacturing costs or an outrageous price tag to justify the quality in small batch production.

It's just the realities of merchandising.  If you've got a hit property with virtually guaranteed sales you can attract the big fish.  If you're small time, you get fellow small time operators or lesser effort from the few larger outfits willing to give you the time of day.  

Harmony Gold's licensees can't compete with Big West's licensees on an even footing in quality or diversity, so they're aiming to compete on cost with the advantage of not having to compete directly.  Not wanting to have to compete directly is what started all this... when they filed for those trademarks to keep the Macross franchise out of the west.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[M'Kyuun]

18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Antitrust laws apply when a company is engaging in anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviors like price-fixing or [having/attempting to have] a monopoly on a particular market or industry.  The beef between Macross's owners and Harmony Gold is a matter of intellectual property law.  Specifically, trademark law.

When Harmony Gold was preparing to relaunch the Robotech franchise c.1999, they realized that they were facing the prospect of Robotech having to compete against Macross's own sequels and the higher-quality merchandise that was being imported from Japan.  They initially (and mistakenly, according to them) claimed that their license gave them the exclusive rights to ALL of Macross rather than just the original series and sent a bunch of Cease and Desists to toy importers.  Because their claim was groundless, that ultimately kicked off the copyright review filings in the Japanese courts so all parties could be assured of who owned what.  Their fallback was filing for trademark registration on the word Macross, the series title card, and various other distinctive odds and ends as a means of ensuring they AND ONLY THEY could legally use those specific marks in the United States.  Trademarks offer the owner/registrant of the trademark legal protection of a sign, design, name, or expression that distinctively identifies a particular product or service.  

The reason that Big West can't just go and challenge Harmony Gold's trademarks on Macross's name and logos in the US the way they could in China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union is that trademark law here is written somewhat differently.  US trademark law gives precedence to the first party to use the trademark in actual commerce in the US when disputes arise.  Other countries, like the ones where Big West successfully challenged HG's trademarks, have provisions that cover corner cases like the first user not being the actual owner and give precedence to the actual owner of the brand/product/property.  

The other thing about trademarks is that, in order to register them, you have to actually be using the mark in commerce.  You can file for registration of a trademark before you first use it in commerce, but you have to actually be using it in order for registration to be granted and you have to keep using it for periodic renewal of the trademark registration.  That is why Harmony Gold keeps producing what little merch it does even it doesn't sell well... they need to be able to demonstrate they're using the trademarks to renew them.

 

 

Harmony Gold's main business is rental property management in SoCal, so they're in no risk of going out of business if Robotech goes belly-up.  Film production and licensing is, for practical intents and purposes, more a hobby for them than anything.  People who know about Frank Agrama's criminal history, of course, have very good reason to suspect that the "hobby" is more for the purposes of money laundering to facilitate tax evasion.  

At the end of the day, as long as Harmony Gold is gone from the picture and Robotech is finally laid to rest I'll be happy.  Even if they have to buy out Harmony Gold's license and so on to do it.

I appreciate the reply.  Seeing the sort of shenanigans they get up to with their hobby,  it's a reasonable assumption that their real estate/rental dealings are likely mired in shadiness. They don't seem to be a company that prizes ethical behavior. Hopefully, one way or the other, it catches up to them and it's their undoing. Even if I'm old and grey by the time it happens, I hope to see HG's hold on Macross slip away, and all things Macross become available everywhere, with the rightful owners reaping the benefits, as well as the fans.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, yeah... naturally.

Harmony Gold takes excruciating care to stay within the bounds of what its license permits it to use in merchandising to avoid provoking any kind of litigation from Big West, so their options are much more limited.  They're also working with a much shallower pool of prospective licensees given that Robotech's relative obscurity and small fanbase make for a much lower expected sales volume and smaller return on investment.  That means fewer prospective licensees, smaller or less skilled companies, and either a lower quality product because corners get cut to reduce development and manufacturing costs or an outrageous price tag to justify the quality in small batch production.

It's just the realities of merchandising.  If you've got a hit property with virtually guaranteed sales you can attract the big fish.  If you're small time, you get fellow small time operators or lesser effort from the few larger outfits willing to give you the time of day.  

Harmony Gold's licensees can't compete with Big West's licensees on an even footing in quality or diversity, so they're aiming to compete on cost with the advantage of not having to compete directly.  Not wanting to have to compete directly is what started all this... when they filed for those trademarks to keep the Macross franchise out of the west.

Very true; I just feel HG shot themselves in the foot on a lot of levels here (which i think you'd agree with me on).

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

I appreciate the reply.  Seeing the sort of shenanigans they get up to with their hobby,  it's a reasonable assumption that their real estate/rental dealings are likely mired in shadiness.

To the best of my knowledge, there have been no indications of anything untoward with their rental property business turned up by any of several investigations into the finances of Harmony Gold's owners.

 

Quote

They don't seem to be a company that prizes ethical behavior.

... so they're a completely normal corporation in that respect, yes?

Seriously though, to a corporation the word "ethics" has nothing whatsoever to do with morality.  When they talk about "ethical" behavior, what they mean is "legal" behavior.  Any corporate ethics training boils down to nothing more than "don't do anything that might get us in legal trouble".  

(In my day job, I swear we get a new "ethics" web training module every time someone successfully sues the company...)

 

Quote

Hopefully, one way or the other, it catches up to them and it's their undoing. Even if I'm old and grey by the time it happens, I hope to see HG's hold on Macross slip away, and all things Macross become available everywhere, with the rightful owners reaping the benefits, as well as the fans.

Unlikely, I suspect... Frank avoided serving his prison term because of his age and an amnesty law meant to reduce prison overcrowding, and his daughter got a substantial fine but that's about it.  If they do decide to bail on Robotech in exchange for a payday, they'll likely continue to live quite comfortably on the stream of income from their investments and rental property business.  Even these legal battles aren't a death by a thousand cuts... it's more like the annoyance of a thousand mosquito bites since their license allowed them to deduct their legal costs from royalties owed to Tatsunoko under certain circumstances.

EDIT: It should be noted that the ability to deduct legal costs from the royalties owed led to an arbitration between Tatsunoko and Harmony Gold in which Tatsunoko alleged Harmony Gold was skimming... but failed to make a sound case for it.  I suspect the outcome of that arbitration played a significant role in securing Harmony Gold's license renewal.  Like HG waiving the order for payment of HG's court costs and attorney's fees that Tatsunoko had previously been refusing to pony up on.

 

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Very true; I just feel HG shot themselves in the foot on a lot of levels here (which i think you'd agree with me on).

To be entirely fair, you could characterize almost any development in the Robotech franchise's history as some form or other of shooting themselves in the foot.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Bolt]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To be entirely fair, you could characterize almost any development in the Robotech franchise's history as some form or other of shooting themselves in the foot.

And the wheel in the sky keeps on turning...

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To the best of my knowledge, there have been no indications of anything untoward with their rental property business turned up by any of several investigations into the finances of Harmony Gold's owners.

 

... so they're a completely normal corporation in that respect, yes?

Seriously though, to a corporation the word "ethics" has nothing whatsoever to do with morality.  When they talk about "ethical" behavior, what they mean is "legal" behavior.  Any corporate ethics training boils down to nothing more than "don't do anything that might get us in legal trouble".  

(In my day job, I swear we get a new "ethics" web training module every time someone successfully sues the company...)

 

Unlikely, I suspect... Frank avoided serving his prison term because of his age and an amnesty law meant to reduce prison overcrowding, and his daughter got a substantial fine but that's about it.  If they do decide to bail on Robotech in exchange for a payday, they'll likely continue to live quite comfortably on the stream of income from their investments and rental property business.  Even these legal battles aren't a death by a thousand cuts... it's more like the annoyance of a thousand mosquito bites since their license allowed them to deduct their legal costs from royalties owed to Tatsunoko under certain circumstances.

EDIT: It should be noted that the ability to deduct legal costs from the royalties owed led to an arbitration between Tatsunoko and Harmony Gold in which Tatsunoko alleged Harmony Gold was skimming... but failed to make a sound case for it.  I suspect the outcome of that arbitration played a significant role in securing Harmony Gold's license renewal.  Like HG waiving the order for payment of HG's court costs and attorney's fees that Tatsunoko had previously been refusing to pony up on.

 

To be entirely fair, you could characterize almost any development in the Robotech franchise's history as some form or other of shooting themselves in the foot.

Then here's the new RDF symbol for HG, done with this discussion specifically in mind:

Edited March 5, 2021 by pengbuzz

[JB0]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's just the realities of merchandising.  If you've got a hit property with virtually guaranteed sales you can attract the big fish.  If you're small time, you get fellow small time operators or lesser effort from the few larger outfits willing to give you the time of day.  

At least they aren't letting Toynami make them anymore!

[tekering]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Then here's the new RDF symbol for HG, done with this discussion specifically in mind:

Looks legit.

[Bolt]

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, JB0 said:

At least they aren't letting Toynami make them anymore!

Aren't they?  I thought Toynami was making their retro/knockoff Takatoku VF-1s?

(I'm not really a toy collector, so if that line got discontinued the news missed me completely.)

Edited March 5, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[vladykins]

They are still making the crappy 1/100s (and have the rip off "retro" packaging).

[JB0]

I stand corrected!

[Knight26]

Here's what I REALLY DON'T GET.

Tatsunoko is a much bigger and more powerful company then HG, no matter how you look at it.  Since Tatsunoko is the legal owner of the international merch and film rights, why do they put up with HGs BS?  More than that, Bandai has a vested interest in seeing Macross getting more worldwide distribution, so with the license coming due any day now, why don't they work a deal with each other?  I'm sure Bandai would cut Tatsunoko a much better deal then HG. 

 

[jenius]

Tasunoko's hands were tied. BW contested their rights and refused to play ball with them. HG had worked on the property since the first deal and was legally entrenched so no one could do anything with the rights but them. Bandai could wag the dog but they have been content to work with BW. 

[Seto Kaiba]

13 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Tatsunoko is a much bigger and more powerful company then HG, no matter how you look at it.

Well, yes... but that's not exactly an achievement.

The Albanian State Washing Machine Company could make the same boast.

 

13 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Since Tatsunoko is the legal owner of the international merch and film rights, why do they put up with HGs BS?  More than that, Bandai has a vested interest in seeing Macross getting more worldwide distribution, so with the license coming due any day now, why don't they work a deal with each other?  I'm sure Bandai would cut Tatsunoko a much better deal then HG. 

Why?  Well, Harmony Gold were the only ones interested in licensing Macross, Southern Cross, and MOSPEADA back in '84.  

Western audiences didn't really become properly aware of the Macross franchise's existence until the newly minted crop of anime hobby magazines like Animerica started publishing the hype for a hotly anticipated new OVA coming for one of the biggest names in mecha: Macross II: Lovers Again.  It was those articles that first clued most of their readers into stuff like the existence of Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Macross: Flash Back 2012, and the differences between Macross and its Robotech adaptation.  Those publications also hyped a different sequel a few years later called Macross Plus. 

Unfortunately, Harmony Gold's license from Tatsunoko was still quite valid at the time and there was nothing they could do to back out of it and shop the series around to someone else now that there was greater interest in it.  

Macross 7 came and went, but because the series was too expensive to license because of the significant additional cost of licensing all of the music, so interest in Macross faded in the west.  That loss of interest in the property meant Harmony Gold was able to renew its license in preparation for attempting to relaunch the Robotech franchise with no issues or competition.

Macross Zero definitely made people sit up and take notice of Macross again, but by that point Harmony Gold had already long since secured the license renewal and locked in their exclusive hold on the original series.  It was Macross Frontier becoming one of the most downloaded shows of 2008 that really got people talking about Macross licensing again, but again because Harmony Gold had already locked in a long term renewal of their license there was nothing to be done and their trademarks on the Macross name and logos meant licensees that would've been interested in acquiring the distribution rights to Macross Frontier and other shows wouldn't bother because of the risk of a trademark infringement suit.

This most recent license renewal was probably the result of some legal leverage Harmony Gold gained over Tatsunoko due a few years earlier.  Tatsunoko had taken Harmony Gold to arbitration on accusations that Harmony Gold had been skimming off the top of the royalties they owed Tatsunoko for home video, streaming, etc. sales of the animation.  Their case didn't hold up, and Tatsunoko was ordered to pay Harmony Gold's court costs and attorney's fees.  Tatsunoko dragged their heels on payment, and Harmony Gold did what it does best and filed a lawsuit against them for violating the arbitration order.  That Tatsunoko renewed their license was a surprise, given that they'd been upset-enough with HG as a licensee to go to court against them, but it seems that Harmony Gold may have used that outstanding debt as leverage to secure a renewal.

Bandai might have a vested interest in seeing Macross go global, but there wasn't anything they could do about it when they got out of the distribution business back in 2013 after deciding to switch to a strictly licensing-based business model and shuttering the US-based distributor Bandai Entertainment and its European counterpart Beez Entertainment.

Tatsunoko, for their part, probably wouldn't see much difference in the bottom line between licensing to Harmony Gold or someone else.  They aren't entitled to royalties from the various Macross sequels and spinoffs, so in terms of the Macross license they don't stand to make any significant gains or losses one way or the other.  The minimal gains that they might make on the original Macross series by partnering with Big West to clear the way for Macross distribution would likely be mostly or entirely cancelled out by the loss of their very modest revenue stream from the royalties paid on Southern Cross and MOSPEADA.  A niche operator like RightStuf might license MOSPEADA, but NOBODY wants Southern Cross except Harmony Gold.  

 

8 minutes ago, jenius said:

Tasunoko's hands were tied. BW contested their rights and refused to play ball with them. HG had worked on the property since the first deal and was legally entrenched so no one could do anything with the rights but them. Bandai could wag the dog but they have been content to work with BW. 

That's... not correct.

Tatsunoko's hands were never tied, really.  Big West and Tatsunoko petitioned the courts together to review their contracts to be sure of who owned what in the wake of Harmony Gold's asinine claims to own all of Macross, but the only thing that was properly contested was Tatsunoko's eligibility to collect royalties from sequels.  The courts, of course, found that they were not eligible to collect royalties on the sequels because they were only involved in the production of the original series not the development of its IP.

It's mostly that there really weren't any other takers most of the time, and on this most recent occasion Harmony Gold had some legal leverage leftover from the arbitration as described above.

[Mommar]

On 3/4/2021 at 8:35 PM, pengbuzz said:

Then here's the new RDF symbol for HG, done with this discussion specifically in mind:

Somebody HAS to print up decals of this!

[Ikaruss]

On 3/5/2021 at 6:02 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Western audiences didn't really become properly aware of the Macross franchise's existence until the newly minted crop of anime hobby magazines like Animerica started publishing the hype for a hotly anticipated new OVA coming for one of the biggest names in mecha: Macross II: Lovers Again.

I assume that by this part, you mean North American audiences and maybe even Laton American audiences, since SDF Macross TV, premiered in countries like Italy, France and Portugal before HG got its hands on the series.
 

And those three countries only what I could read and decipher before the French page that referred it, died in the oblivion of the geocities pages ...

From the Portuguese translation, it is that the Brazilians later had the original Macross, although by then Harmony Gold had the rights and that is why the series was renamed Guerra das Galaxias.

 

[jvmacross]

12 minutes ago, Ikaruss said:

I assume that by this part, you mean North American audiences and maybe even Laton American audiences, since SDF Macross TV, premiered in countries like Italy, France and Portugal before HG got its hands on the series.
 

 

At the end credits of the episode you just posted it reads...copyright 1985, Harmony Gold USA......

 

[Ikaruss]

2 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

At the end credits of the episode you just posted it reads...copyright 1985, Harmony Gold USA......

 

Sure, but that's because the video is from a VHS (or DVD) version, which is after its broadcast, although I could also be wrong.

The point is that Macross existed and was broadcast on broadcast TV in other countries outside of the Robotech mix.

I wish I had a lot more information about it, but I have been hunting for this material for years.
I found it back in 2008/2009 when the Frontier fever was on, and since I was just starting on this, I did not understand the information that had crossed me.
It was not until much later, that I found it again, fragmented, and shortly after, geocities fell, and goodbye to all the material.
I have only been able to find individual videos on youtube, as well as other information lost out there.

A curious case, that's when I saw for the first time, what was the script or part of it, of the live action treatment of a Macross film, from the year 1995.
Information that came to light again a few weeks ago in the fan circles that I frequent.

[jenius]

On 3/5/2021 at 11:09 AM, Knight26 said:

Here's what I REALLY DON'T GET.

Tatsunoko is a much bigger and more powerful company then HG, no matter how you look at it.  Since Tatsunoko is the legal owner of the international merch and film rights, why do they put up with HGs BS?  More than that, Bandai has a vested interest in seeing Macross getting more worldwide distribution, so with the license coming due any day now, why don't they work a deal with each other?  I'm sure Bandai would cut Tatsunoko a much better deal then HG. 

 

On 3/5/2021 at 11:47 AM, jenius said:

Tasunoko's hands were tied. BW contested their rights and refused to play ball with them. HG had worked on the property since the first deal and was legally entrenched so no one could do anything with the rights but them. Bandai could wag the dog but they have been content to work with BW. 

 

On 3/5/2021 at 1:02 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

That's... not correct.

Tatsunoko's hands were never tied, really.  Big West and Tatsunoko petitioned the courts together to review their contracts to be sure of who owned what in the wake of Harmony Gold's asinine claims to own all of Macross, but the only thing that was properly contested was Tatsunoko's eligibility to collect royalties from sequels.  The courts, of course, found that they were not eligible to collect royalties on the sequels because they were only involved in the production of the original series not the development of its IP.

It's mostly that there really weren't any other takers most of the time, and on this most recent occasion Harmony Gold had some legal leverage leftover from the arbitration as described above.

If you're going to tell me I'm wrong, you should illustrate a plausible scenario where ANYONE else could have walked away with the rights. I'm pretty comfortable with my statement that their hands were tied... Unless you think BW and Tatsunoko's time in court indicates they're on good terms... Really, it's all on HG at this point. Any new rights holder would have to overcome all the entrenching HG has done. So, until HG agrees to abandon its interests, Tatsunoko pretty much has to keep feeding the monster. 

[Gerli]

11 hours ago, Ikaruss said:

Sure, but that's because the video is from a VHS (or DVD) version, which is after its broadcast, although I could also be wrong.

 

Tatsunoko is not a publisher, that work (edit the serie and adapt to a specific country/public) has to be done by a publisher (Harmony Gold) So every broadcasting of Macross outside japan has to display the harmony Gold credits, regards of media type (Recorded or broadcasting) 

[Einherjar]

@Gerli I think Gubaba is questioning the source and context of those docs you cited. Considering how screwed up Facebook and Twitter is, as well as the people on those platforms these days, have to agree.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Einherjar

[Gerli]

1 hour ago, Einherjar said:

@Gerli I think Gubaba is questioning the source and context of those docs you cited. Considering how screwed up Facebook and Twitter is, as well as the people on those platforms these days, have to agree.

You have a valid point there. It would be nice if we had a legal expert in those topics to explain the details.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Gerli

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, jenius said:

If you're going to tell me I'm wrong, you should illustrate a plausible scenario where ANYONE else could have walked away with the rights.

To be honest, I think I did a pretty good job of explaining why anyone could've walked away with the rights but only Harmony Gold did in the post you quoted from.

Tatsunoko's hands aren't tied.  They could've taken their ball and gone home, or gone to play with someone else.  The reason they stuck around is that they don't stand to actually gain much of anything from cutting Harmony Gold off.

When it comes to Macross, Tatsunoko collects a share of the profits from domestic exploitation of the original series and also collects royalties on distribution and merchandising for that series outside Japan and merchandising for DYRL? outside Japan.  The Macross license is, for them, a small but steady earner.  If they were to pass on Harmony Gold's bid in the name of shopping the license around to someone else they're not likely to see a significant increase in revenues from that license because the show is so old.  It'd free up Macross in the west, but at the same time they're not going to reap any additional benefits from it because they're not entitled to royalties on other parts of the franchise.  It might drive a tiny spike in home video and merchandise sales at best.  But that comes at a cost.  Everybody knows that Macross is the only part of Robotech that actually makes money for its licensee Harmony Gold.  Harmony Gold has no reason to want to keep its license to Southern Cross or MOSPEADA without Macross.  Robotech is distributed as a single series, so Tatsunoko's collecting royalties on home video, streaming, and broadcast use of all three component shows.  Essentially, if Tatsunoko cuts off Harmony Gold's license to Macross, they also lose the revenue stream from the Southern Cross and MOSPEADA royalties because HG almost certainly won't try to keep the franchise going without Macross.  At best, the gains made from increased interest in Macross offset the similarly small losses from Southern Cross and MOSPEADA no longer producing royalties outside Japan.  

There's no obligation to renew on Tatsunoko's side.  It's all about money and how much of it Tatsunoko stands to make from either approach.

The way to lure Tatsunoko away from Harmony Gold would be to offer them some way to profit from the success of the greater Macross franchise beyond just collecting royalties from the original series.  That's what they want, badly enough to have sued for it least once.

 

13 hours ago, jenius said:

I'm pretty comfortable with my statement that their hands were tied... Unless you think BW and Tatsunoko's time in court indicates they're on good terms...

The copyright/contract review in the Tokyo courts wasn't a hostile event... it was due diligence essentially required by both parties after Harmony Gold idiotically shot off its mouth in '99 claiming its license from Tatsunoko gave it exclusive rights to all things Macross rather than just the original TV series.  Was it expensive?  Yes.  Time consuming?  Yes.  Totally obnoxious?  Yes.  Hostile?  Not really, no.  

The closest it ever got to "hurt feelings" was a separate, but technically related, filing in which Tatsunoko argued that it ought to be entitled to a share of the profit from subsequent exploitation of the Macross IP due to their role in production of the original.  The Tokyo court shot that claim down on the grounds that Tatsunoko had only bankrolled its animation production and not the development of the underlying IP itself.  Tatsunoko would very much like supplemental revenue from a steady earner like Macross, because what production house wouldn't?  They run on razor thin margins all the time.  Even then, Tatsunoko has behaved utterly professionally about it.  They've sent hearty congratulations to Big West and its partners on the success of various Macross properties, and so on.

You're also forgetting one very important thing.  We have a substantial body of concrete evidence that relations between Tatsunoko and Harmony Gold are poor.  It was only a few years ago that Tatsunoko Production took Harmony Gold to arbitration on accusations that Harmony Gold was skimming from royalties owed to Tatsunoko for the use of the three shows in broadcast, streaming, and home video contexts.  That proceeding was definitely acrimonious for both parties since it amounted to an accusation of theft, but also offered several inane sidebar discussions where Harmony Gold essentially attempted to assert it could now use Tatsunoko's IP without their consent even if the license was terminated... a truly asinine turn of events that would've had any competent lawyer fighting the temptation to vault the table and strangle opposing counsel.

 

13 hours ago, jenius said:

Really, it's all on HG at this point. Any new rights holder would have to overcome all the entrenching HG has done. So, until HG agrees to abandon its interests, Tatsunoko pretty much has to keep feeding the monster. 

It's not really entrenched at all... it's all about making a dollars-and-sense case to Tatsunoko and give the "leave" side an actual monetary advantage.

All HG really has going for it is that, while they hold the license, Tatsunoko is also collecting royalties on two other shows that it wouldn't otherwise be collecting anything on.  You might be able to interest RightStuf in licensing MOSPEADA, but NOBODY wants Southern Cross.

[jvmacross]

9 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The copyright/contract review in the Tokyo courts wasn't a hostile event... it was due diligence essentially required by both parties after Harmony Gold idiotically shot off its mouth in '99 claiming its license from Tatsunoko gave it exclusive rights to all things Macross rather than just the original TV series.  

And yet, whether factual or not, we still do not have official releases of anything past Macross Plus outside of Japan....21+ years after HG "shot off its mouth"....by defacto HG is the "perceived" gateway/licensor for all Macross outside of Japan by all interested parties of the IP, if not we would have had some movement in trying to release the rest of the Macross shows outside of Japan through some other licensor....or BW, out of spite, just doesn't want to legitimize HG's claims of licensing ownership for all things Macross outside Japan.....even by not doing so, it basically has for years.....more or less being the "reluctant" partner in this shameful dance for decades...

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

And yet, whether factual or not, we still do not have official releases of anything past Macross Plus outside of Japan....21+ years after HG "shot off its mouth"....by defacto HG is the "perceived" gateway/licensor for all Macross outside of Japan by all interested parties of the IP, [...]

No, everyone knows Harmony Gold CAN'T act as a gateway/licensor for all Macross because they have no access to Macross beyond what Tatsunoko does.

All they can do is squat on those trademarks and wait for it to become enough of an embuggerance for someone to offer to buy out their trademarks.

What they're perceived as is exactly what they are: a roadblock.  No distributor is going to enter into negotiations with Harmony Gold vis a vis the rest of Macross because they know Harmony Gold has no power to grant licenses to that material, and they know that Harmony Gold's goal is to prevent the release of that material by all legal means available to drive up the value of the rights they're squatting on.  That's why no distributor has tried... and the market here ain't big enough to be bothered going to the expense of a long legal battle over.

[Seto Kaiba]

I hasten to add... there is an important distinction here in what Harmony Gold's trademarks actually accomplish.

Harmony Gold cannot, in any way, prevent a distributor from going to Big West and saying "hey, sell me a license to the Macross sequels for <market>".  They have no approvals or involvement in licensing decisions made by Big West.

All Harmony Gold's trademarks do is make it effectively impossible to use those licenses in a commercial context in markets where they hold trademarks.  It enables them to use the threat of trademark infringement lawsuits to make those licenses effectively worthless.  If you can't sell the series on streaming, broadcast, or home video, or release merch for it without being slapped with a lawsuit, you've spent a lot of money for nothing.