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

[neatoman]

So the whole thread about Nicktoons starting to air the 2003 show had some interesting posts, someone said Nick does not actually own the 1987 cartoon. Which lead me to consult Wikipedia, this is what Wikipedia had to say about it:

The original animated series (1987–1996) was produced by Fred Wolf Films Dublin (as Murakami Wolf Swenson (MWS) and Murakami Wolf Dublin (MWD) during earlier seasons), and syndicated by Group W. The series itself is owned by Wolf Films, with home entertainment rights residing with Lions Gate Entertainment, and until recently, syndication rights belonged to Nickelodeon's former corporate sibling CBS Television Distribution.[citation needed] The initial five-part miniseries (retroactively considered the first season) was copyrighted by Playmates Toys, although their rights to those episodes were bought out by Fred Wolf Films.

Which I found interesting, here's what it says on the other TV shows:

Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation was produced by Saban Entertainment, and as of September 2011, is owned and distributed by Saban Brands.[39][40][41]

The second animated series (2003–2009) was a co-production between Mirage Studios and 4Kids Entertainment. Nickelodeon's October 19, 2009 buyout of the TMNT franchise included an approximate $9.75 million payment to 4Kids to terminate its right to serve as the merchandise licensing agent prior to the scheduled expiration of the representation agreement in 2012.[7] Due to the buyout, all future TMNT film and television series rights are owned by Nickelodeon.[38]

Here's what it had to say about the movies:

The first three TMNT live-action films were produced by Golden Harvest, with New Line Cinema (now a sister company of Warner Bros. Entertainment) distributing the films in the United States, with 20th Century Fox distributed the second and third films in most other territories. The first two films were copyrighted by the UK-based Northshore Investments, who according to the legal indicia for the comic book adaptations of those films, owned the supporting characters Keno, Tatsu, Chief Sterns and Professor Jordan Perry.[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] The third film was copyrighted by Clearwater Holdings. The fourth film was produced by Imagi Animation Studios, and released by Warner Bros. Entertainment in association with the Weinstein Company.

And finally the comics:

Initially, Mirage allowed employees and freelancers to retain the rights to characters they created for the TMNT Universe but had never licensed for media and merchandise outside comic books. Eventually, due to the difficulty of keeping track of everyone's rights, Mirage made TMNT character creators sign retroactive work-for-hire contracts. One creator who did not sign over the rights to his TMNT work was Swamp Thing veteran Rick Veitch.[50]

So if I understand this correctly, aside from what was created after the buyout, all Viacom owns of TMNT is the 2003 series, the majority of the comics and (possibly) the toyline? Am I missing something here? Is Wikipedia a reliable source on this? How much can Viacom pull from the parts they have little or no control over, without risking copyright infringement?

[FoxBoxKid]

The first movie and The Next Mutation are on Netflix. However, Viacom and Netflix don't do business anymore. All that being said, it's unlikely Viacom has control over the movies and The Next Mutation. Since Viacom owns the source material, I doubt they have to worry about copyright infringement regarding the Turtles.

[snake]

Ciro said that he has a list of characters he can use, and it's a big list.

[TigerClaw]

Ciro said that he has a list of characters he can use, and it's a big list.
I wonder if that List includes all the characters from the Archie comic as well.

[neatoman]

I wonder if that List includes all the characters from the Archie comic as well.

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

[CyberCubed]

Viacom owns:

- The Mirage comics (including Image)

- Archie TMNT Adventures comics

- 4kids TMNT cartoon

- Most if not 90% of TMNT characters in all universes

- The new stuff like the Nick cartoon, IDW comics, and movie obviously


They don't own the original cartoon, movies or next mutation.

[John Pannozzi]

I edited that info on Wikipedia, and I can verify it's all true, at least to the best of my understanding. Note that I used sources for most of it (the thing about CBS having had the syndication rights to the 1987 series lacks a citation, and was not added by me FYI).

I think the only characters to originate in TMNT media (besides crossover characters like Pterano-Man, the Conservation Corps., and Virago from Savage Dragon) that Viacom might not own are:

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. Northshore might not exist anymore, so maybe Golden Harvest owns them now.).

Headrush from Paul Castiglia's TMNT Adventures Special.

Some of the characters from Steve Sullivan & Brian Thomas's TMNT Adventures stories.

The characters from Don Simpson's two "Alternate Turtles" short stories

Lucindra and her brother Malcolm, and other related but unnamed characters in TMNT v1 #44.

Bloodsucker, Old Man River, Gabby and the other characters from Rick Veitch's TMNT stories.

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

All the characters from the TMNT RPGs (they're owned by Pallidium's Kevin Siembieda).

Von Clutch and Darlin' (owned by Peter Laird's company Funatix!).

The characters from the TMNT short story by Fred Hembeck that was included in a reprint of TMNT vol. 1 #2.

The characters from all the stories in the original Turtle Soup one-shot (except the stories by Steve Bissette and Eric Talbot).

Maybe the characters from Dave Garcia's zombie story in Turtle Soup vol. 2 #2.



Some notes:

Although Viacom does not own the Next Mutation episodes, they DO own every character introduced in that series (unless you count the Power Rangers in the NM/PRiS crossover).

AFAIK, Viacom owns every single character from the 1987 TV series, except for Usagi, who, naturally, belongs to Stan Sakai.

[snake]

I wonder if that List includes all the characters from the Archie comic as well.

He's using Armaggon, so yes.

[Powder]

Although Viacom does not own the Next Mutation episodes, they DO own every character introduced in that series (unless you count the Power Rangers in the NM/PRiS crossover).


Good to know, as I'm dying to see the villains get rebooted in IDW or something.

[The Big Bad]

So where do things stand regarding music? The Nick toon is certainly referencing the original theme song as much as it can--I assume its under license from Fred Wolf?

[neatoman]

So where do things stand regarding music? The Nick toon is certainly referencing the original theme song as much as it can--I assume its under license from Fred Wolf?

I'm not a music guy and I don't know where the copyright for the music is, but is the intro similar enough to the original song for a lincense to be needed? Is it just me, or does the tones sound off even where it tries to sound the same?

[evan2000]

I'm not a music guy and I don't know where the copyright for the music is, but is the intro similar enough to the original song for a lincense to be needed? Is it just me, or does the tones sound off even where it tries to sound the same?

Let's start by analyzing the chords and melody separately. First, the OT theme and the Nick theme only has a minor (pardon the pun) difference in the primary chord sequence, which repeats itself throughout the song.

OT theme:
C-major (full note) | E♭-major (full note) | F-major (half note) F-minor (half note) | C-minor (full note)

Nick theme:
C-minor (full note) | E♭-major (full note) | F-major (half note) F-minor (half note) | C-minor (full note)

In short, only the first chord is different. Also, C-major and C-minor only has one key difference, ie. E note changed to E♭ note.

As for the melody, the pacing is similar but the notes are quite different.

OT theme:
G A G A G A G A | B♭ C B♭ C B♭ C B♭ C | E♭ F E♭ F E♭ F E♭ F | C C C C B♭ C (rest) C C C C

Nick theme:
E♭ E♭ D D E♭ E♭ C C | E♭ E♭ D D E♭ E♭ C C | E♭ E♭ D D E♭ E♭ F E♭ | C C C C B♭ C (rest) C C C C

Lyrics:
Teen-age Mu-tant Nin-ja Tur-tles | Teen-age Mu-tant Nin-ja Tur-tles | Teen-age Mu-tant Nin-ja Tur-tles | He-roes in a half shell (rest) tur-tle po-wer

In short, only the last phrase (heroes in a half shell, turtle power) is exactly the same.

So when you feel that "the tones sound off even where it tries to sound the same" it's basically due to the Nick theme melody being combined with the same pacing and (almost) the same chord sequence as the OT theme. You're definitely not the only one who felt that :trazz:

[John Pannozzi]

Fred Wolf Films owns all the music from the 1987 series AFAIK.

I should note that the original music from Next Mutation now belongs to Bug Music: https://web.archive.org/web/20110907091901/http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/news/e3if40aadb1b179f42a29510fa82cf296ee



Edit: and BMG owns Bug Music: http://www.americansongwriter.com/2011/09/bmg-snatches-up-bug-music-ceo-sues-company/

[miru]

I edited that info on Wikipedia, and I can verify it's all true, at least to the best of my understanding. Note that I used sources for most of it (the thing about CBS having had the syndication rights to the 1987 series lacks a citation, and was not added by me FYI).

I think the only characters to originate in TMNT media (besides crossover characters like Pterano-Man, the Conservation Corps., and Virago from Savage Dragon) that Viacom might not own are:

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).

The characters from Don Simpson's two "Alternate Turtles" short stories

Lucindra and her brother Malcolm, and other related but unnamed characters in TMNT v1 #44.

Bloodsucker, Old Man River, Gabby and the other characters from Rick Veitch's TMNT stories.

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

All the characters from the TMNT RPGs (they're owned by Pallidium's Kevin Siembieda).

Von Clutch and Darlin' (owned by Peter Laird's company Funatix!).

The characters from the TMNT short story by Fred Hembeck that was included in a reprint of TMNT vol. 1 #2.

The characters from all the stories in the original Turtle Soup one-shot (except the stories by Steve Bissette and Eric Talbot).

Maybe the characters from Dave Garcia's zombie story in Turtle Soup vol. 2 #2.



Some notes:

Although Viacom does not own the Next Mutation episodes, they DO own every character introduced in that series (unless you count the Power Rangers in the NM/PRiS crossover).

AFAIK, Viacom owns every single character from the 1987 TV series, except for Usagi, who, naturally, belongs to Stan Sakai.
Also:

* Kris Mu and Dark Mu from Supermutants OVA.
* Tora and Shogun Warrior from TMNT 2: The Arcade Game.
* Characters from Las Tortugas Ninjas

[pferreira]

So can someone tell me who owns the rights to the Konami Turtles games? Is it UbiSoft or another company?

[neatoman]

So can someone tell me who owns the rights to the Konami Turtles games? Is it UbiSoft or another company?

It's Konami, I know this because Ubisoft needed to license Turtles in Time to do the remake, and the arcade game was removed from XBLA after Ubisoft got the rights to TMNT.

[John Pannozzi]

Also:

* Kris Mu and Dark Mu from Supermutants OVA.
* Tora and Shogun Warrior from TMNT 2: The Arcade Game.
* Characters from Las Tortugas Ninjas

Actually, I think they own Kris Mu and Dark Mu.

Didn't either Tora or Shogun have an action figure?

No clue on the Las Tortugas Ninjas characters, but I think characters from another comic guest-starred in it at one point.

[TigerClaw]

I wonder if that list includes Ninjara? She appeared in the Archies Comics, But wasn't a character created by Eastman and Laird, But someone else. And she appeared in 3 issues of a comic called Furrlough, by Radio Comix after the Archie Comics were canceled.

[Powder]

Didn't either Tora or Shogun have an action figure?

Nope. You're likely thinking of Patraw's customs, unless you've mistaken Panda Khan & Lord Norinaga for those two. :trazz:

[neatoman]

I wonder if that list includes Ninjara? She appeared in the Archies Comics, But wasn't a character created by Eastman and Laird, But someone else. And she appeared in 3 issues of a comic called Furrlough, by Radio Comix after the Archie Comics were canceled.

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.

[pennydreadful]

Shame, because I really did love Ninjara.

[Luckyday]

Shame, because I really did love Ninjara.

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

[TigerClaw]

What did Ninjara brought to the table other then being Raph's girlfriend?
Being a bad ass ninja for one. :)

[Luckyday]

Being a bad ass ninja for one. :)

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

[John Pannozzi]

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]

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]

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.


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? :lol:



* 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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?

[miru]

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?

Aska, Shogun Warrior, Tora, Sisyphus, Tatsu, and Bloodsucker say hi.

[CyberCubed]

And none of those characters really have any burning desire to be used again especially since they're all very similar characters to ones created either before or after them.

Aska = just another female ninja. Extremely redundant with Karai, Pimiko and any other female ninja.

Shogun Warrior = Are you talking about this robot? Who cares?

Tora = Literally just Dirtbag before Dirtbag existed. Yes I know Tora is a polar bear but they look nearly the same anyway.

Sisyphus = Another generic bug alien/mutant which we have plenty of

Tatsu = People love Tatsu because of the real life actor. If you put him into animation or art the appeal is lost.

Bloodsucker = They flat out confirmed Wyrm was created as his replacement, who appeared in both Archie and Nick. We have a leech mutant in Wyrm.

[neatoman]

Tatsu = People love Tatsu because of the real life actor. If you put him into animation or art the appeal is lost.

Really? Because I was under the impression that most people think Tatsu was bland and forgettable.

[CyberCubed]

Really? Because I was under the impression that most people think Tatsu was bland and forgettable.

People loved Tatsu.

[Powder]

Yeah, people have suggested his return a lot over the years. IDW was gonna use him only to find they couldn't.

I for one would love to see Aska, but it's no biggie.

[miru]

Somehow, Nick was able to eventually use Tatsu, which means they may have secured his rights from Northshore Investments.

Bobby Curnow said he had no clue about the Panini comic stories and Xemnar, meaning we may not be out of the woods just yet. He also mentioned something about Soak-Orr and Angleron being used, despite him presuming he lacks the ability to use stuff from unreleased projects.

[Andrew NDB]

Bloodsucker = They flat out confirmed Wyrm was created as his replacement, who appeared in both Archie and Nick. We have a leech mutant in Wyrm.

Wyrm isn't a leech.

[sdp]

Do we know if The Next Mutation characters are owned by Saban (I guess Hasbro now) or by Viacom?

[miru]

Do we know if The Next Mutation characters are owned by Saban (I guess Hasbro now) or by Viacom?

Viacom, given Venus having a profile back in the day.