6 replies to this topic

[BigScwerl]

Out of Curiosity, I looked into the Harmony Gold Business... for a quick summary to anyone who is interested, I've copied the relevant wikipedia text here below:

Harmony Gold is a real estate developer, motion picture distributor and production company, based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1983 by Egyptian-born Frank Agrama and is managed by his daughter, Jehan F. Agrama.

The company began by selling broadcast rights from Paramount Pictures to the Mediaset media conglomerate.^[1] It is best known as the distributor of the controversial Shaka Zulu miniseries and for various anime series, notably Robotech.

The company worked closely with Intersound, a Los Angeles-based post-production recording studio, managed by Frank Agrama's son, Ahmed Agrama. They were responsible for partially dubbing Dragon Ball,^[2] Magical Princess Minky Momo and Dr. Slump before going out of business in 2006.^[3]

In addition to its distribution and production interests, Harmony Gold manages several real estateproperties in the Southern California area. They also operate a screening room in Los Angeles.

Legal problems[color=#555555][[/color]edit[color=#555555]][/color]

Harmony Gold and its founder, Frank Agrama, have had an extensive history of legal troubles beginning in the early 2000s. Italian investigators discovered and froze bank accounts in Switzerland; five belonging to Agrama. According to another Italian daily, the Corriere della Sera, the five accounts are said to contain SFr140 million ($109.5 million). This early investigation led to two high-profile trials.

Mediatrade acquittal[color=#555555][[/color]edit[color=#555555]][/color]

In October 2011, Paddy Chan Mei-yiu and Katherine Hsu May-chun, along with nine others (including Frank Agrama and Pier Silvio Berlusconi, son of Silvio Berlusconi), were indicted by a Milan court and charged with buying rights for US television series and movies, then reselling them to broadcasting rights firm Mediatrade (a subsidiary of Mediaset) at inflated prices and laundering the money in a complex scheme. The four companies allegedly involved in this scheme were Wiltshire Trading, Harmony Gold, CS Secretaries and Loong Po Management.^[13]

According to prosecutors, Chan met Agrama in Cannes, France in the late 1970s at a trade fair and they decided to form a partnership to trade movie rights internationally. Chan organized a Hong Kong-based Harmony Gold Limited in 1979, records from the city's Companies Registry show. In the same year, Agrama organized Agrama Film Enterprises on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Four years later, he set up Harmony Gold USA. He later also became the Los Angeles representative of another Hong Kong company established by Chan, Wiltshire Trading.

Prosecutors estimated the illicit profits between 1988 and 1999 amounted to US$170 million. Earlier in 2005, Swiss investigators froze 150 million francs (HK$1.29 billion) at a UBS branch in Lugano belonging to Harmony Gold, Wiltshire Trading and other companies.^[14]

On July 24, 2014, Variety reported that some of the charges have been dropped due to expiring statute of limitations.^[15] An appeals hearing is set to take place January 20, 2016.^[16] On January 18, 2016, all charges against Frank Agrama and five other people were dropped. Berlusconi and Mediaset Chairman Fedele Confalonieri were convicted and were sentenced to 13 months of imprisonment.^[17]



Legal issues regarding Macross copyright[color=#555555][[/color]edit[color=#555555]][/color]

Harmony Gold, via its license of Robotech, is the co-copyright owner in the US for images of mecha from the component series of the show, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. They have pursued multiple lawsuits against anyone using mecha which even vaguely resemble these designs.

Most notably, many early designs used in Battletech, such as the Warhammer, Valkyrie, and Marauder, were licensed directly from the Japanese producers of Macross, with the overlapping rights mistake not being realized for nearly a decade. Harmony Gold sued FASA, and as a result these designs were removed from the game. Fan outcry over 'The Unseen' has led to multiple attempts to negotiate deals allowing for resumed use of the designs, but despite in one case a sourcebook going to press before being abruptly pulled, no deal has ever been reached. As a result of the failed negotiations, the producers of Battletech ruled that any designs not developed in house would no longer be used in order to avoid future issues.

Harmony Gold issued cease and desist orders against sites displaying images and trailers from the deceased video game MechWarrior, due to one of the mechs used in the trailer being a Warhammer.^[18] The company claims that the images portray ’mechs that they own the rights to, according to a legal settlement from 1996.^[19]

The legal status of Harmony Gold's license to Macross is dubious. Harmony Gold's license for Macross came from Tatsunoko Production, but Japanese courts ruled that it was Studio Nue (creators of the series) that controls the Macross intellectual property. The license Tatsunoko was given was for international distribution outside Japan only, and does not allow them to control the intellectual property. According to the US Copyright Office, Harmony Gold is the Co-Copyright owner.

In 2013, Harmony Gold claimed in Federal Court that Hasbro's SDCC 2013 exclusive set "G.I. Joe vs Transformers The Epic Conclusion" violated their copyright license and trademarks on the animated Japanese Macross TV series (1982–84).^[20] On September 23, 2013, Harmony Gold's suit against Hasbro was dismissed with prejudice, and Hasbro was allowed to continue to sell the sets. ^[21]



SOOOO: Harmony Gold's copyright is not even a clear cut matter. This company is the Scourge of the earth...They actually have a contact address on their website for their corporate HQ. Feel free to send nasty emails. or mail flaming bags of SH!t their way. What a rotten bunch of shady a$$holes. They can EABOD as far as I'm concerned.



http://harmonygold.com/

[Alreech]

BigScwerl, on 28 July 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

Feel free to send nasty emails. or mail flaming bags of SH!t their way. What a rotten bunch of shady a$$holes. They can EABOD as far as I'm concerned.

And this is helpfull to PGI ?
I don't think so.

The best way to hurt harmony gold and to support PGI is to fill PGIs legal warchest by buying MCs and Mechpacks from Mechs those desings are undisputed.

[BigScwerl]

Then we risk lose the warhammer and Marauder and other mechs due to a bogus copyright infringement?

Obviously, nobody on the forum really cares to read into this issue. But If a community stood together to bring light to this lawsuit, we could send a strong message that HG is not just suing battletech, they are suing a community.

Edited by BigScwerl, 31 July 2017 - 07:57 AM.

[Kalimaster]

I stand with you.

They tried to sue Hazbo and it was dismissed with prejudice.

[Exilyth]

BigScwerl, on 28 July 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

*snip*

That nicely sums it all up, thank you for putting this overview together.

[Horseman]

BigScwerl, on 28 July 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

SOOOO: Harmony Gold's copyright is not even a clear cut matter.

Actually, it is... Harmony Gold only owns copyrights licensed to them by Tatsunoko, which explicitly does not include copyrights to character designs awarded to Big West.

And here's the list of Big West's copyrights, with much joy to be had: http://web.archive.o...ents/index.html

Yep. Harmony Gold doesn't own the ******* mecha.

Edited by Horseman, 21 August 2017 - 02:54 AM.

[KursedVixen]

BigScwerl, on 31 July 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

Then we risk lose the warhammer and Marauder and other mechs due to a bogus copyright infringement?

Obviously, nobody on the forum really cares to read into this issue. But If a community stood together to bring light to this lawsuit, we could send a strong message that HG is not just suing battletech, they are suing a community.

I'd care if i felt PGI already didn't
screw me over, well mainly, Russ.

But I really don't like harmony gold, the destroids suck vs battlemechs anyway.


Edit: on a side note: No, they need a CERPPC to the face not a PPC

Edited by KursedVixen, 21 August 2017 - 09:21 AM.