Screwed by the Lawyers: Difference between revisions

[[Copyright]] and [[Trademark]] law have gotten in the way of or forced cancellation for many works. No matter how promising, popular or profitable a show is, it's still apt to get canceled if it would be ''illegal'' to keep broadcasting. This can be prone to [[What an Idiot!]] moments on the part of the owner of the intellectual property in question, since if it's that profitable, it makes sense to license the work rather than shut it down, unless of course the artist is [[Doing It for The Art]].

Related to [[Screwed By the Network]].

** ''[[Macross Seven|Macross 7]]'', ''[[Macross Zero]]'' and ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' will most likely not be released, because of bad blood between Harmony Gold and Big West making such a release impossible. In ''Macross 7'''s case, another obstacle is the music licensing, which is a tangled weave.

** The only reason, apparently, that ''[[Macross Plus]]'' and ''Macross II'' were released and still enjoy widespread release in the US is that they came out at a time in which HG was "not minding the store", according to rumors that they were weakened after a head-hunting raid by [[Saban Entertainment|Haim Saban]]. And that the Japanese side of the pileup [[Sending Stuff to Save The Show|was actually listening to the fans and the rest of the industry]].

* ''[[Zenith]]'' cannot be reprinted because [[Grant Morrison]] claims that when Rebellion bought the rights to ''[[Two Thousand AD]]'' from IPC, it apparently didn't include the rights to ''Zenith''. The fans are disappointed.

* Sometimes this happens to [[Fan Sequel|Fan Sequels]] and [[Fan Remake|Fan Remakes]] based on licensed properties, the most famous case probably being ''[[Crimson Echoes (Fanfic)|Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes]]''. Of course, this should have been obvious from the start.

* The ''[[Warhammer 40 K]]'' fan-film ''[[Damnatus]]'' originally had Games Workshop's full support, but during post production, problems with intellectual property rights arose due to differences between British and German copyright law. Thus, the movie was banned from official release. However, someone leaked the movie and can be seen. Thus, it was the ''lawyers'' that got screwed.

** ''[[Turn Signals On a Land Raider]]'', a ''Warhammer 40K'' webcomic, stopped because it was becoming too time-consuming and expensive to do. The reason the lawyers got involved is that the only way to really give it a chance to make enough money to continue was to make it into a book. But Games Workshop refused to grant permission. Despite that refusal being of questionable legality (it probably would be legal under fair use or parody), it wouldn't be worth the hassle if the guy got sued.

* The indie [[Slasher Movie]] ''[[All the Boys Love Mandy Lane]]'' probably won't see the light of day in the United States for the foreseeable future, due to the company that held the American distribution rights to it going bankrupt and closing its doors. Also a case of [[Screwed By the Network|Screwed By The Studio]] -- the [[Weinstein Company]] dumped the film on the now-bankrupt distributor once they saw a number of horror films (most notably ''[[Grindhouse]]'') go bust at the box office, despite having already paid $3 million for the rights to it.

* The [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] is a big victim of this, being a [[The Verse|shared universe]] for a handful of cinematic characters adapted from a [[Marvel Universe|shared universe]] for literally ''hundreds'' of comic book characters. [[Thor]], [[Iron Man]], [[The Incredible Hulk]], [[Captain America]], [[Hawkeye]], [[Black Widow]] and [[Nick Fury]] can freely interact with each other in the movies just like they do in the comics, but [[Spider Man]], [[Daredevil]], the [[X Men]], and the [[Fantastic Four]] continue to exist in their own stand-alone universes because their movie rights are owned by various competitors of Marvel Studios. As awesome as it would be, it's unlikely that we'll ever see an ''[[The Avengers (Film)|Avengers]]''-style crossover featuring Spider-Man or the X-Men, even though these are very common in the comics.

* ''[[The Charmings]]'' got complaints by the [[Walt Disney]] Company when ABC was run by Capital Cities, since it was an unauthorized parody of ''[[Snow White (Disney)|Snow White]]''. It's unclear whether this or low ratings ultimately led to its cancellation, however, but Disney does now own ABC, opening up the possibility of a DVD release, though the heavy discouragement of press comparisons with the later ''[[Once Upon a Time]]'' by the network suggests that it considers it a [[Dork Age]] program.

** Disney doesn't own "[[Snow White (Literature)|Snow White]]", but it owns the dwarfs' names. So, if you plan on doing Snow White for something, [[Writing Around Trademarks|make your own dwarfs...]]

* This trope didn't kill ''The Film Crew'' outright (via Jim Mallon threatening to pull the ''[[MST3K]]'' license from Rhino Entertainment if they worked with the project), but it definitely made things more difficult; Nelson, Murphy and Corbett eventually moved on to ''[[Rifftrax]]'', which was much easier to produce.

** Jim Mallon explained that the reason he didn't want Rhino producing ''The Film Crew'', was they'd be spending money on b-movies for The Film Crew, when they could be using whatever money they had for b-movies shown on [[MST3K]] ([[MST3K]] only secured temporary rights to their movies while the show was on the air, and the rights have to be re-negotiated for DVDs. It's not easy, or cheap).

** ''[[Rifftrax]]'' itself is essentially immune to this trope due to a variation of style, however: they don't release the movies in any form, they merely release tracks of the cast talking ''about'' the movies; obviously the original copyright holders don't have any claim over things people choose to say about their films. (There ''are'' some movies available as pre-synced tracks, but they cost more, part of which goes to a payment to license them.)

* Licensing and rights issues have prevented the home video release of many TV series over the years. Most notable examples include ''[[The Six Million Dollar Man]]'' and the original ''[[The Bionic Woman]]'', which were withheld from North American VHS or DVD video release for close to 30 ''years'' before a breakthrough was reached that will allow their release starting in late 2010. The 1960's ''[[Batman (TV)|Batman]]'' series reportedly has such complex licensing that the general assumption is that it will simply never be legally released in a home video format until it finally enters public domain near the end of the 21st century. The 1996 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Doctor Who/TVM the TV Movie/Recap|TV movie]] <s> has been barred from North American VHS or DVD release for similar reasons</s> was thought to be [[No Export for You|permanently unavailable outside the British Commonwealth]] due to this; the warring rightsholders decided to bury the hatchet and a worldwide DVD release came in February 2011.

* When future generations turn to DVD/digital recordings of today's TV series, many of these shows will be lost in their original versions due to music and sometimes entire scenes being changed due to licensing and clearance issues. Examples include: the theme song for ''[[Married With Children]]'' being replaced on the DVD releases; a scene involving [[The Beatles (Music)|The Beatles]] being deleted from the VHS release of the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S2 E8 The Chase|The Chase]]" (it's in the Region 2 DVD); most pop music from season 1 of ''WKRP in Cincinatti'' being replaced with generic music for the DVD release.

* The DVD release of WB's all-female superhero series ''Birds of Prey'' was held up for ''years'' (leading to an awful lot of [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]] needless to say) due to music rights issues; the fact that it was [[Screwed By the Network]] (cancelled in its first season despite good reviews and decent ratings, reportedly due to internal network politics) did not help. It was only after years of pleading from the fans that the series got a full release on DVD... with a note on the packaging, you may notice, that "some" of the music has been changed for home video release.

** Curiously, there is a pattern that tends to emerge with what gets pulled and what doesn't, even aside from some content owners being more stringent about it that others: TV shows and movies (''especially'' current ones) are the strictest, along with popular music (unless the artists ''deliberately'' use online distribution [[No Such Thing As Bad Publicity|as free advertising]]). Music from other sources, though, tends to be less strictly enforced. Rarest of all to be cut are video game clips; since [[Captain Obvious|you can't actually play the game on YouTube]], each video game clip is basically a trailer the producers didn't have to pay for. Also, [[Fan Vid|AMVs]] are, for whatever reason, often kept in the same way [[Fanfic]] in general is rarely targeted, despite theoretically having two possible angry claimants.

* The above was what caused [[That Guy With the Glasses (Website)|That Guy With the Glasses]] to start its own site...and now many years later, when [[Obscurus Lupa]] and [[The Nostalgia Critic (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Critic]]'s reviews of ''[[The Room]]'' got pulled for this very reason, fans got ''pissed''.

* Like many radio show hosts, Phil Hendrie allows website subscribers to download show episodes as podcasts. At some point, network lawyers decided that it was a copyright violation for podcasts to include music. This affected any skits that involved music, including his frequent parodies of Jim Rome's and [[Coast to Coast AM|Art Bell]]'s shows that incorporated their respective "[[Guns N' Roses (Music)|Welcome to the Jungle]]" and "[[ABBA|Dancing Queen]]" theme songs, and his [[Running Gag]] of using the "Darth Vader Death March" as theme music for his fictional boss. The music in these cases was replaced by awkward silence, and if characters in Phil's comedy skits commented on the music, podcast listeners could not know what they were talking about.

* Some flashes on [[Newgrounds]] are victims of this due to being based on copyrighted works, as Newgrounds has received [http://www.newgrounds.com/lit/legal.html cease-and-detest letters] from companies such as [[The BBC]] (for a ''[[Teletubbies]]'' spoof called "Teletubby Fun Land", which has been eventually renamed to "Tele''bubby'' Fun Land"), [[Jim Henson|The Jim Henson Company]], and [[MGM]] (for a ''[[Robo Cop]]'' flash tribute made by a fan).

* ''[[Garfield]]'' had a short run of ''Believe it, or don't'' gags... until PAWS Inc. got a cease-and-desist letter from the [[Ripleys Believe It or Not|Robert Ripley]] estate.

* Way back when, FASA had obtained a license to use a number of mecha from three anime shows -- ''[[Crusher Joe]]'', ''[[Fang of the Sun Dougram]]'' and -- yep, you guessed it -- ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' for use in their ''BattleDroids'' wargame. Never heard of ''Battledroids''? That's because [[George Lucas]] threatened a lawsuit over the word "Droid". So, the game became ''[[Battle Tech]]''. Then, in 1994, [[Robotech|Harmony Gold]] complained and threatened a lawsuit over use of the ''Macross'' mecha in the game. The problem was that FASA had rights to the miniatures that originally came with the game, which were based on the aforementioned designs. But because of the way they were licensed, FASA did not necessarily have rights to the ''artwork'', which Harmony Gold took them to task over. The battlemechs based on those designs continued to be used (The Warhammer and Marauder are some of the most famous 3025-era battlemechs), but not depicted in images, being dubbed the "Unseen".

* The [[Tetris (Video Game)|Tetris]] Company absolutely ''adores'' this trope. They claim to have [[Disney Owns This Trope|copyrights on basically every aspect of the game]], even those which the US Supreme Court has ruled ''cannot be copyrighted'' ([[wikipedia:Lotus v. Borland|Lotus v. Borland]]), and they'll send C&D letters to anyone who so much as dares make a game with falling tetrominoes, or even just the song "Korobeiniki" (which is actually a Russian folk song, but often remembered as "the Tetris theme").

** ''Blockles'' was pulled after a lawsuit from The [[Tetris (Video Game)|Tetris]] Company was settled out of court.

* This trope is commonly theorised to be the reason that [[MOTHER 1 (Video Game)|the]] ''[[Earthbound (Video Game)|MOTHER]]'' [[Mother 3 (Video Game)|trilogy]] has remained a case of [[No Export for You]] ever since the series' [[Earthbound|sole American release]] in 1995. Japan has looser copyright laws than America, and it's believed that Shigesato Itoi refuses to allow the myriad cultural [[Shout-Out|ShoutOuts]], [[The Jimmy Hart Version|Jimmy Hart versions]] and a certain [[Salvador Dali]] themed enemy to be changed for another international release, and Nintendo is unwilling to override his decisions. The rest of the world may not be the only ones affected by this - notably, it's still absent from the Japanese [[Wii|Virtual Console]] even though it was included as a Masterpiece in the Japanese version of ''[[Super Smash Bros Brawl]]'' and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3UWSm5dKIw explicitly named by Satoru Iwata] when introducing the Virtual Console in 2005...

* [http://www.terrordrome-thegame.com/ Terrordrome] was a promising [[Fighting Game]] pitting several horror movie killers, plus Ash from ''[[Evil Dead]]'', against each other. However, just in the space of a few weeks the authors received C&D letters asking the removal of Ash, [[A Nightmare On Elm Street|Freddy]] and [[Friday the 13th (Film)|Jason]] (pretty much spurned on by Freddy's inclusion in the ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' [[Revival]].) The loss of three of the most iconic characters (not to speak of all the effort that went into their making) was demoralizing for the team, and the project is probably dead. The last news post says [[Self-Deprecation|it would have been better to avoid so much exposure]].

* This is also the case for the ''[[Jump Super Stars]]'' games, where various ''Shonen Jump'' properties are owned by different companies. Sometimes, a different company can hold the manga rights, anime rights, and the merchandising rights, as is the case with ''[[Dragonball]]''.

* Having various companies own American and European rights to [[Tatsunoko]] series was overcome for ''[[Tatsunoko vs. Capcom]]'', as Capcom went through the trouble (and money) to buy all of the rights for every series represented in the game and then some, with the exception of ''Hakushon Daimaou''. This character was removed from the international version as the European copyright holder absolutely refused to sell the rights to Capcom.

* [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/Tart_as_a_double_entendre.png This] infamous ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' strip showing ''[[Strawberry Shortcake]]'' [[In the Style Of]] ''[[American McGee's Alice (Video Game)|American McGee's Alice]]'' had to be taken off the site due to a cease and desist letter the creators got from American Greetings.

* Disney's purchase of [[Marvel Comics]] put an end to Sony's production of ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]''. (In general, Disney's trying to avoid screwing with existing licensing deals, but Sony gave up the TV rights to Spidey so they could keep [[Spider-Man (Film)|the movie rights]].)

* This caused the demise of King Louie of ''[[The Jungle Book (Disney)|The Jungle Book]]'' in all Disney media. The family of the late Louie Prima (who voiced Louie in the original movie) sued Disney because [[Jim Cummings]] did ''too good a job'' impersonating Prima when he voiced the character in ''[[Tale Spin (Animation)|Tale Spin]]''. As a result, Louie was completely absent from ''Jungle Book 2'' and replaced by an Expy named King Larry in ''[[House of Mouse]]''.

* ''[[Beavis and Butthead (Animation)|Beavis and Butthead]]'' is now available on DVD without many of the music video commentary segments due to not being able to license that amount of music. Arguably, those segments were half the reason why the show was entertaining. Even the segments that were made available for the DVD releases (on separate discs from the episodes themselves) aren't available online.