29 replies to this topic

[A Rabid Raccoon With A Shotgun]

Prototelis, on 23 January 2020 - 10:43 AM, said:

lol no

The end to merchandising efforts was the fundamental mismanagement of the IP and allowing it to be split and held by several parties, in addition to a limited amount of appeal to a small demographic.

(I'm not defending HG, but if you think HG isn't why you can't rock on down to walmart and get a battletech shirt you're mistaken.)

Say for instance, PGI gets TeeSpring/Tepublic/rebubble to start making shirts and what not. As long as their are no mechs on the shirts or w/e, that's perfectly fine, but if say they threw an unseen unlicensed mech onto those products, but HG holds the rights to in their recent July 2019 broad scope renewal of rights, then yeah HG could come after one of those outlets, who would then be directed back to PGI, and PGI would have to go back to court yet again. Is the IP mismanaged, yeah, but a major major problem, is where both Robotech (HG) and Battletech (PGI/HBS/Calayst Games), all get their designs from which is Tatsunoko.

Tatsunoko says yes you can use X design for this, X design for that to HG, they also say yes you can use X design too but only for these purposes to PGI. So say HG has rights to shirts, but PGI has rights to figurines, and PGI makes a shirt, that's a no no and HG can come after them for that. Look at the mechs that were at fault to begin with that were in game, they were taken out because HG raised hell. It wasn't until the case defaulted that they could be brought back but even then on a limited basis.

[Dimento Graven]

FRAGTAST1C, on 15 January 2020 - 07:07 PM, said:

Do people still buy G.I. Joe action figures?

Just the figures with "Kung-Fu grip"...

[Prototelis]

A Rabid Raccoon With A Shotgun, on 23 January 2020 - 11:28 AM, said:

but HG holds the rights to in their recent July 2019 broad scope renewal of rights, then yeah HG could come after one of those outlets

HG, for as far as we can tell, has no right to PGI redesigns of unseen.

Either way; I don't think PGI's license includes physical merchandise.

[A Rabid Raccoon With A Shotgun]

Prototelis, on 23 January 2020 - 11:37 AM, said:

HG, for as far as we can tell, has no right to PGI redesigns of unseen.

Either way; I don't think PGI's license includes physical merchandise.

Knowledge is power~

https://www.sarna.ne...botech-license/

[Prototelis]

lol, k. Knowing is half the battle

https://www.sarna.ne...-been-resolved/

Edited by Prototelis, 23 January 2020 - 06:38 PM.

[A Rabid Raccoon With A Shotgun]

If you read the article on den of geek it HG's response was this

"Harmony Gold USA, Inc. announced today that it has reached an agreement with the Japanese anime studio, Tatsunoko Productions, Co., to extend the worldwide, co-copyright ownership and exclusive management, excluding Japan, for its landmark anime series Robotech (including Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada). This agreement was achieved after a lengthy negotiation and allows Harmony Gold to continue to exploit the animated Robotech franchise well into the future."

Co-ownership and exclusive management hold a huge weight in US courts, not to mention clearly stating, for all regions outside of Japan where Tatsunoko still holds ownership and exclusive rights, I would suggest reading up on Copyright Law specifically section 106, clearly says they have complete and total control of said designs and derivative works. Can they lease it out to PGI? Yes, but the likelihood of that is more towards no since they already had legal issues with PGI before. The court case before was when HG only had partial rights, and even then it exclusively was for use in MWO, MW5, HBS's Battletech, and Catalyst's tabletop game, nothing else, which someone from PGI would have to say other wise but that's no doubt confidential and not for our eyes. Essentially HG didn't have full ownership rights before, but now they do, an obvious power move since they see MW5/Battletech is doing relatively well in sales and want a piece of that.

[Prototelis]

Uhm, except they were unable to prove PGIs designs were derivative works lol.

[JediPanther]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 11:31 AM, said:

Just the figures with "Kung-Fu grip"...

The gi joe vehicles from the RAH line have a good secondary market. Certain ones are close to $300 with a completed set such as the flag going for a few grand. I know I watch hasbro a lot for re-issues except they just don't use the line or original molds any more since they have star wars and the rest of the kenner in their grip. Here's hoping they bright out the real ghostbusters in a few months with afterlife. I still have the ecto-1 and while I did have the fire house it has been lost in several moves over the years.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Not quite pertaining to a franchise but has PGI ever run ads in-game?

[Dimento Graven]

FRAGTAST1C, on 23 January 2020 - 09:01 PM, said:

Not quite pertaining to a franchise but has PGI ever run ads in-game?

Nope. Never (well not counting the start up splash screens for Nvidia, oh and the freebies that were awarded like the nVidia fairy, and a very few other items over the years, not quite "ads" but still served a co-marketing kind of purpose).

One of the few promises mostly kept.