How long does Viacom own the rights for?
 

Does anyone know when they expire?

Pretty sure in perpetuity. They're not "leasing" them.

Forever!!!!

Copyright works like that?

They bought the franchise 100% from Mirage, lock, stock, and barrel. This isn't like when 4kids got the rights to make a cartoon but Mirage still owned the franchise.

Viacom could decide to sell the franchise off in the future to some other company like Disney, WB, or whomever....but they'll probably hold onto it.

Or Viacom could put the franchise in their vaults and do nothing with it like they do with plenty of IPs that they own but don't see any profit (big enough for them to care). I mentioned this when Viacom bought the turtles but everyone was too excited to care, but as it becomes a possibility now I'm sure more will listen. We could theoretically see the end of the turtles after the Nick show and PD movie finish their runs and IDW can only last for so long.

It owns everything with no expiration except for not owning syndication rights to the 1987 cartoon and Lionsgate holding distribution rights of the same cartoon while New Line owns distribution rights of the first three films. Why Viacom has no ask its sister CBS Corp for syndication rights is beyond me.

That's what I'm particuarly worried about.

I could see this happening. When it reaches a non-profitability point, simply bury it in their vault. Not sell it, of course, as that would mean someone else could come back and make it competition.

Do you know how much a TMNT dark period would suck? I'm not talking any 2009-2011 sh*t, I mean an actual dark age.

Arguably necessary, at this point. Cleanse the palate. Let a generation forget... this.

That could be the best scenario for you Andrew, if TMNT fades from people's mind exept nostalgic people but Viacom has no interest in spending a lot of money marketing it for kids then they might allow someone to "experiment" with it and an adult version could come out. Ren and Stimpy had an adult cartoon later on at MTV, IIRC the quality was bad but it shows that if there's potential money to be made they don't care to "tarnish" an IP as say Disney would.

I just don't see Viacom spending as much energy into TMNT as it did when it bought the franchise, the marketing and hype they built up was huge and while this revival has made them get their investment back and more they wanted a bigger hit as they compared the acquisition to Disney's Marvel.

If there were a guarantee that a new show/movie/comic/whatever would come along after 10-15 years I'd agree. But as long as IDW is still good, I'm happy. Hopefully it's influence can rub off on later incarnations.

For god sakes, why are we talking about this NOW? The Nick cartoon is going on at least until the end of 2017 (and possibly longer if it gets renewed), and the IDW comic is bound to last a decade.

Come up with the doom and gloom conspiracy theories around 2018-2019 or so when the Nick show ends.

True. No matter what, this can't be considered a "bad investment." They've made money, but if the profit margin shrinks to where the same resources would be better suited elsewhere for larger returns... they won't hesitate to lock up the TMNT and squat on it.

Oh, I'd be shocked if it was more than 5 years before something new of that scale came about.

Kinda doubt Nick would let TMNT go through a dark age. Its been consistently popular for decades and its one of the biggest franchises they own next to Spongebob I guess.

Its not like their old franchises would have kept going if Nick had not stopped them. Doug, Rugrats and such were not gonna keep going til today. They weren't super-franchises that ever "took over the world".

Not an extended one. But one nonetheless. Which isn't to say it would be in entirety... I doubt they would yank IDW's deal away just to further a clandestine ice age, or deny the occasional video game or T-shirt license, things of that nature.

A break is one thing, but if they even thought of trying to put it aside and forget about it for too long or for good, then I hope the public puts and keeps the pressure on them to do something with it, either use it or sell.

Maybe 20 years ago they could easily just wave it off, but now with social media that might never shut up about it... good luck.



Gonna have to fail at doing that, since my nephew won't have much choice but to be familiar with TMNT. Heck...I bought him a number of Halfshell Hero figures the day after he was born, just in case they're not being made anymore by the time he's old enough for them.

That would be good. Though the... *erm*... kinds of vocal TMNT fans there are out there in the interwebs are really not the ones they should be listening to.

One of my favorite videos regarding copyright.

Unless they're sold, Viacom won't lose the rights to TMNT until they fall into the public domain.

You mean those who want to see the proverbial turd polished?

That, or worse.

The big factor here is merchandise. As long as the merchandise is selling well, turtles will not be mothballed. Playmates is a much bigger factor in this than a lot of you pretend, it's not all ratings or box office numbers, it's the merchandise sales that will determine the fate of all non-IDW TMNT media. And with the exception of a few clothing line items, merchandise sales are doing well all across the board.

Guys, take it from somebody who has worked in retail; the youngest generation of fans has embraced the pizza-chomping, multicolored masked heroes as they appear in the nick show. The imagined freeze and quiet time, followed by a red-masked mirage reboot so many dream of, is not happening- not now, not ever. TMNT might receive a makeover, but it's not going away in the next few years.

Not now, sure. Of course not not.
Not ever? How many various reboots of Batman have their been?

It's what's going to be perpetuated. When this generation grows up, what are they going to be nostalgic for? The nick show. When they are making their generations cartoons and media, where are they going to look for their inspiration? The nick show. The OT was goofy and stupid, but the parts casual fans thought were 'cool' have been recycled into the much higher quality incarnations of IDW and the Nick show.

The OT has achieved it's immortality by the elements it has passed on to the newest versions of TMNT. Those elements will go on into every incarnation that follows. Multicolored masked, bebop and rocksteady, technodromes and krangs- these things are here to stay.

Believe me, we know. I think only Andrew and a few others have issues with that.

But TMNT is headed for another snooze... the Nick toys are NOT selling like they were a couple of years ago. We're fast approaching the "Fast Forward / Back to the Sewers" era of Nick TMNT.

This... I agree with. The usagi crossover and Bebop and rocksteady: most wanted lines are when you get to the phase where you're desperately trying to keep things fresh, and keeps sales growing instead of slowly declining. The nick show and other media products of this 'gen' of turtles probably has 1-3 more years in it, playmates will inject money into Nick projects to keep TMNT on life support as it declines. I just hope IDW survives.

The Usagi crossover isn't confirmed. If he really was going to appear in Nick we'd have a huge press release.

What I wouldn't give for an animated show that didn't cater to a toy company...

I was talking about the toy lines, not the show.

Just like when they had those "huge press releases" the last 5 times Usagi and TMNT crossed over? **** off.

What does what 4kids did have anything to do with the way Nick runs things? Nick always makes big press releases of upcoming stuff in the cartoon. We've seen this the last 3 years.

TMNT has a habit of going "on ice" for a few years in-between iterations/revivals anyway. That's just part of the cycle at this point. Toys go off the shelves for a short while, then they can make a big launch of whatever the next line is to the new generation. It's worked out pretty well for them so far.

The fact that even pessimistic people on here don't seem worried about IDW being affected gives me a little reassurance that we'll be okay. :tgrin:

IDW TMNT started in 2011, we're now in 2016. Its been 6 years, I can easily see it lasting a decade or more.

That's 5 years.

Time passes differently inside of a Cybercube.

If you count 2011...

1. 2011
2. 2012
3. 2013
4. 2014
5. 2015
6. 2016

But it started in August 2011. 5 years 1 month.

Ah. Then yeah, five years.