So how much of TMNT does Viacom/Nickelodeon/Paramount actually have control over?

[pennydreadful]

Shame, because I really did love Ninjara.

[Luckyday]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

Shame, because I really did love Ninjara.

What did Ninjara brought to the table other then being Raph's girlfriend?

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Luckyday

What did Ninjara brought to the table other then being Raph's girlfriend?

Being a bad ass ninja for one.

[Luckyday]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Being a bad ass ninja for one.

Being a bad ass can only give you such a short life expectancy.
#RulesofStorytelling

[John Pannozzi]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Eeeehhhh, I think Murphy/Allan retain the rights to the character. I suspect that might have been the point of Alopex, to have Ninjara without risking a lawsuit.

Murphy told me that he sold Ninjara to Mirage right before the sale to Nick.

Some other notes:

John Totleban did the covers to the Casey Jones miniseries (which itself is technically co-owned by Rick Veitch and Viacom because Eastman worked on it), and I have no idea if he did them as work-for-hire or not.

I'm not entirely sure if Mike Gaydos's contributions to the Turtle Soup short he did with Dan Berger were work-for-hire or not.

[GodzFire]

We need to track down exactly who owns the music rights to the OT soundtrack so we can get them to put out a release or contact the original composers and bribe them to post the tracks.

I would drop some serious money to make this happen.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by GodzFire

We need to track down exactly who owns the music rights to the OT soundtrack so we can get them to put out a release or contact the original composers and bribe them to post the tracks.

I would drop some serious money to make this happen.

Wouldn't Fred Wolf own those rights?

I know Chuck Lorre was salty over not being paid royalties by Wolf after the show gained popularity.

[John Pannozzi]

Originally Posted by Venom

Wouldn't Fred Wolf own those rights?

AFAIK, yes.

[sdp]

We've had this thread before but glad to see it re-resurrected, its always an interesting topic. Are we sure Mirage owns TNM characters? We've never seen any of them outside TNM and many of them were worthy of a second chance. I do remember reading that some of the Archie characters had ambiguous ownership like Ninjara. I also remember a dromer suggested that from the original show maybe they only owned characters drawn by Mirage and any generic mad scientist or mobster could technically not be owned by Mirage. Not a huge loss but still worthy pointing out.

Originally Posted by John Pannozzi

Keno, Prof. Jordan Perry, Chief Sterns and Tatsu (Northshore Investments used to own them, and I can't find any information to suggest that that's changed).

Why wouldn't they? They own Tokka/Rahzar and we the Genesis TMNT game had Tatsu and I doubt they'd license just for that one minor character from the first movie years later for a videogame when they had tons of more relevant characters for free. I do remember reading that they said they didn't have Tatsu as a character they could use for the Nick show but I might be making that up.

Aska from the Tournament Fighters game. Also, I don't think they own Sisyphus, either.

Yeah I think Aska not being owned by Mirage could point to the other Konami original villains being owned by Konami..
Wasn't Aska in another Konami game also?
I really liked her even if she is a generic female Ninja and no sisyphus? Who will hump the turtles now?

Originally Posted by miru

* Characters from Las Tortugas Ninjas

Las Tortugas Ninja just re-drew the Archie comic but later did some original stories. Since I moved to Mexico I've tried getting issues or more information about this comic but literally no one remembers it, the company that did it also hasn't existed in almost two decades, so if they created any cool original characters they'll be lost to time since no one knows.

[Wildcat]

Nick doesn't own or have rights to the OT? Weird.

They used them in the current cartoon which I guess could just be general permission. So they couldn't air the cartoon if they wanted to? They'd have to get permission?

Does that mean the OT could just as easily end up on Boomerang? That's funny. Well Next Mutation was on the HUB so not that surprising I guess.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Nick doesn't own or have rights to the OT? Weird.

They used them in the current cartoon which I guess could just be general permission. So they couldn't air the cartoon if they wanted to? They'd have to get permission?

Does that mean the OT could just as easily end up on Boomerang? That's funny. Well Next Mutation was on the HUB so not that surprising I guess.

They don't own the actual OT episodes. They could use any character from the original cartoon even re-using their designs (as they have), but they don't own the actual episodes.

Nick can't air the original toon on TV or make their own DVDs of it, its owned by Lionsgate.

[Wildcat]

Ya but do they own the OT designs? There's a lot of OT merchandise with Nicks name on it.

[GodzFire]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Nick can't air the original toon on TV or make their own DVDs of it, its owned by Lionsgate.

Who like to put out half-ass releases.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Ya but do they own the OT designs? There's a lot of OT merchandise with Nicks name on it.

Obviously, that's how both 4kids and Nick were able to design the Turtles looking practically identical to the OT's animation in both Turtles Forever and their cameo in Nick Season 2.

I'm sure Nick would love to rerun the original cartoon on TV, they just can't do it unless they partner with Lionsgate.

[John Pannozzi]

Dan Berger just told me that Mirage didn't own the TMNT anime or manga or any characters originating from them.

[miru]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I'm pretty sure he also suspected the majority were just rejected toy designs.

I'm now starting to think Nickelodeon doesn't own at least some of the abandoned toys/characters. Ryan Brown still owns a chunk of the rejected Mutanimals characters created for the unmade series. However, they probably do own the scrapped 2007 line figures, as Mirage were pretty strict with work-for-hire contracts by then. Did the restrictions also apply to Titan Magazines?

[sdp]

Well for the most part they own everything except minor characters from niche products. It's sad that we won't see some of them since I do like them but their chances of appearing even if they owned them were also minimal ironically enough.

I understand not wanting to buy all those characters separately from all these companies since they're not important but buying the OT can't be that expensive for what it represents; I don't understand why these huge companies don't pony up the cash for their legacy. It's like Nintendo not wanting to pay rights for the Donkey Kong arcade game and would rather release the terrible NES port. Sure they might not make that money back but it's their legacy. Disney understood this and their CEO Bob Iger made a deal to get Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back.

Is it that difficult to make a solid contract that says "Any character created for this franchise is the property of _____". I'm all for creators getting credit and owning stuff they create but not when they're working on another property. We get stuff like Ken Panders who created all these characters in the Sonic comic that are pretty much stock Sonic looking characters/clones and then sues Sega/Archie for using his characters and he actually won and now has his own comic with those characters that are right out of any sonic universe.

[miru]

Originally Posted by sdp

Well for the most part they own everything except minor characters from niche products. It's sad that we won't see some of them since I do like them but their chances of appearing even if they owned them were also minimal ironically enough.

I understand not wanting to buy all those characters separately from all these companies since they're not important but buying the OT can't be that expensive for what it represents; I don't understand why these huge companies don't pony up the cash for their legacy. It's like Nintendo not wanting to pay rights for the Donkey Kong arcade game and would rather release the terrible NES port. Sure they might not make that money back but it's their legacy. Disney understood this and their CEO Bob Iger made a deal to get Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back.

Is it that difficult to make a solid contract that says "Any character created for this franchise is the property of _____". I'm all for creators getting credit and owning stuff they create but not when they're working on another property. We get stuff like Ken Panders who created all these characters in the Sonic comic that are pretty much stock Sonic looking characters/clones and then sues Sega/Archie for using his characters and he actually won and now has his own comic with those characters that are right out of any sonic universe.

To be fair, Nintendo's settlement with the devs came out on undisclosed terms which may prevent any future official release whatsoever, but that was decades ago. Banjo-Kazooie is a better example.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by sdp

Is it that difficult to make a solid contract that says "Any character created for this franchise is the property of _____". I'm all for creators getting credit and owning stuff they create but not when they're working on another property. We get stuff like Ken Panders who created all these characters in the Sonic comic that are pretty much stock Sonic looking characters/clones and then sues Sega/Archie for using his characters and he actually won and now has his own comic with those characters that are right out of any sonic universe.

For real! Dang ol Penders... But I guess it's ultimately Archie/Sega's faults for their negligence on paperwork to protect their IPs.

[CyberCubed]

Regarding TMNT, does it really matter that Nick doesn't own some obscure TMNT character that was either never produced or never heard of?

Literally all the major Fred Wolf characters, toy characters, 2k3 series characters, and Mirage characters are usable in either the Nick cartoon or IDW comic. So what difference does it make?