Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

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tHeWasTeDYouTh
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Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

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I used to be a big Robotech fan back in the day before I figured out what Macross was (thanks to Macross Plus) and then everything clicked in. I never understood what was going on with Harmony Gold but I recently found out a ruling came out and Tatsunoko lost while Hormony Gold will have the rights for a few more years. Pretty interesting stuff and since this place is second to Robotech.com in robotech fans (Lol) just wanted to make a topic and see what you guys thought of this.

p.s heard that HG is going after Piranah games or something like that because of some mechawarrior designs... good ol HG!
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

tHeWasTeDYouTh wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2017 7:36 pm I used to be a big Robotech fan back in the day before I figured out what Macross was (thanks to Macross Plus) and then everything clicked in. I never understood what was going on with Harmony Gold but I recently found out a ruling came out and Tatsunoko lost while Hormony Gold will have the rights for a few more years.
Eh... the part about Harmony Gold USA's license from Tatsunoko Production expiring in 2021 is utterly tangential to the actual proceedings, which were basically Harmony Gold USA asking the California Central District Court to enforce the outcome of a prior binding arbitration over money owed for legal fees, and it's not even really news. We've known that the license is up in 2021 for something like ten, maybe twelve years now.

The Robotech fans are only surprised because Harmony Gold runs the brand's public relations like a North Korean propaganda broadcast. If it's not gushing, effusive, blatantly ridiculous self-praise it doesn't get said. "All is well. No more questions. Carl's glorious vision will lead us to financial success."


tHeWasTeDYouTh wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2017 7:36 pm Pretty interesting stuff and since this place is second to Robotech.com in robotech fans (Lol) just wanted to make a topic and see what you guys thought of this.
... have you been to those boards in the last decade? There's less activity there than in a morgue after business hours, and it's been that way ever since the volunteer mods lost the plot and banned everyone for criticizing Harmony Gold's then-latest stillborn attempt to continue the Robotech story (Shadow Chronicles).


tHeWasTeDYouTh wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2017 7:36 pm p.s heard that HG is going after Piranah games or something like that because of some mechawarrior designs... good ol HG!
Yeah, you can always count on BattleTech and MechWarrior for those few surreal "world turned upside down" moments where Harmony Gold is suing someone and aren't the bad guys in that situation.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Oh HG is the bad guy in this one, and you know it.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Seto Kaiba wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2017 11:21 pm Yeah, you can always count on BattleTech and MechWarrior for those few surreal "world turned upside down" moments where Harmony Gold is suing someone and aren't the bad guys in that situation.
It's more of "bad guy vs. bad guy" IMO. HG is slightly lesser of the two evils because at least they did bought the license.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

krullnar wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2017 12:32 am Oh HG is the bad guy in this one, and you know it.
I dunno, I mean... it's a case of a kinda-dickish trademark squatter trying to enforce its legitimately-purchased exclusive license and the terms of a prior binding settlement against a company of naive crooks who keep commiting the SAME EXACT CRIME and have the nerve to act surprised when they get hauled in front of the courts for it like they've been on every previous occasion.

From a legal standpoint, Harmony Gold has been in the right every time they've sued BattleTech's owners... and even if their license expired, it'd just mean Tatsunoko, Big West, and Studio Nue would be the ones filing the lawsuits.

FASA, Catalyst, Piranha, and HBS are basically Team Rocket... they've got the skillset to succeed in a dozen other fields, but they keep trying to steal from one mark who whups their asses every single time in exactly the same way with the very thing they're trying to steal.


Kuruni wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2017 1:10 am It's more of "bad guy vs. bad guy" IMO. HG is slightly lesser of the two evils because at least they did bought the license.
If you wanted to put a film spin on it, it's Dudley Do-Right we're looking at. One is in the right, but completely and utterly clueless about everything except the legitimate offense right in front of it... and the other is intelligent enough but suffers from a mad love affair bordering on obsessive compulsion that leads them to commit the same crimes and get caught by the same guy every time.

Harmony Gold is Dudley, FASA/Catalyst is Snidley Whiplash.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

i have never been into battletech/mechwarrior mainly because i rarely come upon their stuff. how good is the series overall?

as for the Harmony Gold vs tatsunoko. it's as big as a headache as ever IMO. also the comments from two ANN robotech articles said hat Big West itself was making a move on Harmony Gold. is that a different thing or did i just read wrong?(probably because of running on less than 4 hours of sleep)

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... pt/.121299

too lazy to find the other one. :D

on a side note, i reserved HG to Hard Gay Razor Ramon and High Grade Gunpla. :twisted:
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Henyo wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2017 7:12 pm as for the Harmony Gold vs tatsunoko. it's as big as a headache as ever IMO. also the comments from two ANN robotech articles said hat Big West itself was making a move on Harmony Gold. is that a different thing or did i just read wrong?(probably because of running on less than 4 hours of sleep)
Oh, that's happening... but it's a completely independent issue from what's going on in court between Harmony Gold and BattleTech, and between Harmony Gold and its long-time partner Tatsunoko Production.

Big West is essentially stealing a march on Harmony Gold by filing for new trademarks across Asia and using those to subsequently challenge the trademarks that Harmony Gold is using to block the importation of Macross into all those countries. They're gradually eroding the barrier Harmony Gold uses to keep Macross bottled up in Japan, though if Tatsunoko refuses to renew Harmony Gold's license in 2021 it will become a non-issue once Harmony Gold's ability to enforce those trademarks vanishes.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Henyo wrote: Sat Sep 23, 2017 7:12 pm i have never been into battletech/mechwarrior mainly because i rarely come upon their stuff. how good is the series overall?
Its pretty good series of games though i think the Novels are where the bulk of the series best works are at. If you are going to start reading them I would recommend the Legacy of Kerensky trilogy or the Jade Phoenix trilogy both technically take place in the middle of the Battletech timeline but are really at the apex of when the series was at its best.

As for what seto wrote oh how we can dream of overpriced Macross blu-ray disks, but at least it would be legal merch.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

I guess HG will start to get every single cent they can from Robotech now that the license will expire. I checked the new Robotech comic which is a retelling of the cartoon series and the art style is horrible. Breetai and Exedore look like Beavis and Butt-Head. Gave me a few laughs. I also never knew HG is literally an italian mob tax evasion company or something like that!!!! and on the side they did Robotech
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

tHeWasTeDYouTh wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:43 pm I guess HG will start to get every single cent they can from Robotech now that the license will expire.
Yeah, ever since Harmony Gold's own management stealth-canceled the Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles OVA by eliminating the budget before work could even begin on the second of its four planned episodes and followed it up with their rage-quit on Kickstarter when they failed to get anywhere close to their modest funding goal, it seems like they got the message that all they can do is hit merchandising hard and fast with overpriced, low-volume crap while they run out the clock.


tHeWasTeDYouTh wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:43 pm I checked the new Robotech comic which is a retelling of the cartoon series and the art style is horrible. Breetai and Exedore look like Beavis and Butt-Head. Gave me a few laughs.
It was a wonderful show of confidence in the series that the publisher, Titan Comics, indicated they're not sure it'll make it to the planned 12 issue limited run... and they don't seem to have any intention to go on once they're done abusing the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross.


tHeWasTeDYouTh wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:43 pm I also never knew HG is literally an italian mob tax evasion company or something like that!!!! and on the side they did Robotech
Nah, 's not the mob... it's the other kind of organized crime, the "corrupt government official" variety. Nobody does that like the Italians do. The Agramas were tight with Silvio Berlusconi and his media company, so they were involved in no small amount of his shady dealings and tax evasion. Harmony Gold is basically a middling rental property management company that (unsuccessfully) dabbles in film distribution as a hobby.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

i think the situation of Tsuburaya and to that china produced Ultraman film is kinda similar.

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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Henyo wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 8:29 am i think the situation of Tsuburaya and to that china produced Ultraman film is kinda similar.
Based on what little I've been able to find on the subject, I'd have to say it's not a very similar situation...

It's not clear why TIGA Entertainment and UM Corporation believe their license from Chaiyo Productions gives them the right to produce new, original Ultraman works in addition to acting as a localizer and regional distributor for the Ultraman franchise. It may be a genuine misunderstanding prompted by a vague and badly-worded license agreement, or TIGA and UM may simply be counting on the Chinese government's rather notoriously weak stance on intellectual property protections and innate anti-Japanese bias and/or using that ongoing dispute between their partner Chaiyo Productions and Ultraman owner Tsubaraya Productions to shield them from consequences.

Assuming you don't count the blatant misinformation spread by their official website's volunteer moderators in their forums and on Facebook, Harmony Gold USA has never claimed that it can use anything from the original three shows that make up its Robotech series without having to first obtain the express consent of their Japanese owners. In the past, they were actually quite candid about that and the limitations that it imposed on their development of new projects. After the change in staff in 2001, they went to using some misleading language to obscure that unpleasant truth but they never took it far enough to constitute an actual lie or use anything without permission. They stayed well away from Macross's designs because they couldn't get permission and didn't want to end up in court, and for the Tatsunoko-owned Southern Cross and MOSPEADA they obtained approvals for the usage of those designs beforehand. At least in terms of their usage of designs from Southern Cross and MOSPEADA, Harmony Gold is actually something of a model citizen... if only they could extend the Macross franchise a similar level of courtesy.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Basically it all boils down to the chance (and only the chance) that Tatsunoko might get the rights and trademarks back in 2021.

I would guess that it would depend on what Tats thinks they can make more money from: Distributing the Macross franchise with Big West/Studio Nue or renewing the deal with HG with promise of cut of profits from the RT LAM.... assuming it ever gets made
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Arbiter GUNDAM wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2017 10:26 am I would guess that it would depend on what Tats thinks they can make more money from: Distributing the Macross franchise with Big West/Studio Nue or renewing the deal with HG with promise of cut of profits from the RT LAM.... assuming it ever gets made
Eh... I'm pretty sure there are some other important factors that skew things towards the "don't renew" side.

Back in 2014, Tatsunoko Production found itself with a new majority stakeholder (Nippon Television) that would like them to exert tighter and more direct control over the company's licensed properties. They're joining another large stakeholder, Takara-Tomy, who have very little use for Harmony Gold USA to begin with as the de facto owners of The Transformers, a brand Harmony Gold has taken shots at in the past. Between those two, they have 74% of Tatsunoko Production, enough to railroad any policy changes they want through. Tatsunoko's management has an existing grudge against Harmony Gold thanks to disputes over royalties from the Robotech license as well that arbitration settlement ordering them to pay a portion of Harmony Gold's legal fees from their often-spurious legal actions.


Tatsunoko no doubt also knows that Harmony Gold has no real reason or incentive to give them any royalties from the proposed Robotech live action movie. The project is explicitly a reimagining from the ground up, using only those aspects of the Robotech series unambiguously owned by Harmony Gold, so Tatsunoko wouldn't be getting any royalties because they're not using any Tatsunoko-owned properties.


I think Tatsunoko's also smart enough not to accept the promise of royalties from the movie, since to date no live action anime movie produced in the west has been a box office success. Even Ghost in the Shell, which has arguably been the best performer to date, finished something like $100 mil in the red once its advertising budget gets factored in.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Even so, I'm not going to hope too much...
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

When Harmony Gold's license runs out in a couple of years and it does NOT get renewed I gonna have a party with beer and strippers. I have had the hate-on for their willful folly ever since 199X. One of the reasons I got into watching the stuff traded from Japanese raw tape was so I would never have to be dependent on people like them to get some anime. All they can do is harass people for payoffs, since apparently making a genuine product is beyond their talent or their imagination.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Zeonista wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:19 am When Harmony Gold's license runs out in a couple of years and it does NOT get renewed I gonna have a party with beer and strippers.
Just make sure you bring enough for everybody... there are a LOT of people waiting for a chance to dance on Robotech's grave.

Zeonista wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:19 am All they can do is harass people for payoffs, since apparently making a genuine product is beyond their talent or their imagination.
In all fairness, their biggest problem is that it's beyond their budget.

Harmony Gold USA is actually a moderately profitable rental property management firm. All that nonsense the company gets into over film rights, and particularly Robotech, is an expensive hobby the Agrama family indulges in via the company even though it consistently loses them money. There is a growing body of circumstantial evidence from various criminal investigations of the Agrama family in the US and in Italy (incl. several prior convictions) that suggests that the Agramas keep Harmony Gold's money-hemorrhaging film distribution operation (with Robotech as its flagship) alive to use as part of a money-laundering scheme that started in the late 80's involving trading media rights to fictive companies they owned in tax haven countries, essentially re-selling film rights to themselves at a loss for the selling company, allowing them to pocket profits from the sale AND post a loss on their taxes. That said money laundering operation was found by the courts to have started shortly after Robotech spun in with two back-to-back failures in 1986-7 seems a bit much to be coincidence.

Harmony Gold could never afford to hire any actual talent for Robotech because the money was never there despite the wealthy Agrama family being on as producers. Word from the inside is that all their staff, who have received grandiose titles like "Vice President of Animation", are paid like entry level workers at a normal company. They've admitted in interviews that production budgets are vanishingly small... they did Shadow Chronicles on less than $1 million, and it definitely felt like a setup for failure. Particularly after they canceled the other three episodes of the OVA almost immediately after the first one came out, despite having contracted the voice actors and studio for four episodes. (Guaranteeing a loss, you see...)
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

I am indebted to Seto Kaiba for the behind-the-scenes financial shell game that has shorted HG for real productive work. The Agrama family are a real piece of work. I suppose having a "Hollywood company" is a good tax dodge, but it sure has screwed all of us for nigh on 30 years. That part broke my heart, since it makes things clear that it's been all BS for quite some time.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Zeonista wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:47 pm I am indebted to Seto Kaiba for the behind-the-scenes financial shell game that has shorted HG for real productive work. The Agrama family are a real piece of work. I suppose having a "Hollywood company" is a good tax dodge, but it sure has screwed all of us for nigh on 30 years.
Yeah, though they're far from the highest-profile players in that money laundering scheme... arguably the biggest name involved was former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. They were convicted of using that scheme of selling their company's film rights to shell companies in tax haven states to commit tax fraud amounting to something like $100M USD (inflation adjusted).

They've been brought up on similar charges a number of times since, escaping imprisonment for their tax evasion only due to the statue of limitations expiring in some cases and Frank's advanced age and prison overcrowding making him inelligible for a stint in an Italian prison in others. Several of these investigations resulted in Harmony Gold having their assets frozen, and there are reports that the new head of the family business, Jehan Agrama, is under investigation by the IRS in a joint investigation with the Italian government over failure to disclose foreign income (and is facing an IRS tax penalty of at least $900,000).

Harmony Gold being headquartered in LA is only really because most entertainment companies are... the actual work being done in this money laundering affair is happening overseas, in tax havens like the Cayman islands. HG is just a facilitator, or some would say a cover.


Zeonista wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:47 pm That part broke my heart, since it makes things clear that it's been all BS for quite some time.
Probably for even longer than that, honestly. Prosecutors in the MediaSet trial were able to trace the origins of the plan to launder vast sums of money this way all the way back to 1979.

Then again, it could be argued that Robotech was always BS... since it was a Macross dub hijacked by Revell's desperate attempt to save their shitty Transformers knockoff, it was hacked together in a huge hurry, and then the people responsible (most notably Carl Macek) spent almost twenty years lying about the origins of the material so the fans of Robotech would attribute it to them instead of the Japanese studios responsible. At points, they'd even claimed that the story was theirs alone and that they had simply paid the Japanese studios to animate it.
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Re: Harmony Gold vs Tatsunoko

Seto Kaiba wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:48 am
Zeonista wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:47 pm I am indebted to Seto Kaiba for the behind-the-scenes financial shell game that has shorted HG for real productive work. The Agrama family are a real piece of work. I suppose having a "Hollywood company" is a good tax dodge, but it sure has screwed all of us for nigh on 30 years.
Yeah, though they're far from the highest-profile players in that money laundering scheme... arguably the biggest name involved was former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. They were convicted of using that scheme of selling their company's film rights to shell companies in tax haven states to commit tax fraud amounting to something like $100M USD (inflation adjusted).

They've been brought up on similar charges a number of times since, escaping imprisonment for their tax evasion only due to the statue of limitations expiring in some cases and Frank's advanced age and prison overcrowding making him inelligible for a stint in an Italian prison in others. Several of these investigations resulted in Harmony Gold having their assets frozen, and there are reports that the new head of the family business, Jehan Agrama, is under investigation by the IRS in a joint investigation with the Italian government over failure to disclose foreign income (and is facing an IRS tax penalty of at least $900,000).

Harmony Gold being headquartered in LA is only really because most entertainment companies are... the actual work being done in this money laundering affair is happening overseas, in tax havens like the Cayman islands. HG is just a facilitator, or some would say a cover.


Zeonista wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:47 pm That part broke my heart, since it makes things clear that it's been all BS for quite some time.
Probably for even longer than that, honestly. Prosecutors in the MediaSet trial were able to trace the origins of the plan to launder vast sums of money this way all the way back to 1979.

Then again, it could be argued that Robotech was always BS... since it was a Macross dub hijacked by Revell's desperate attempt to save their ZOINKS Transformers knockoff, it was hacked together in a huge hurry, and then the people responsible (most notably Carl Macek) spent almost twenty years lying about the origins of the material so the fans of Robotech would attribute it to them instead of the Japanese studios responsible. At points, they'd even claimed that the story was theirs alone and that they had simply paid the Japanese studios to animate it.
well there not known for being the most legit company. they co-funded during economic sanctions with South Africa the series Shaka Zulu while also shafting the production partner SABC on royalties not even listing them as co-producers on there us print.
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-11-21/ ... shaka-zulu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_Zulu_(TV_series)
this seems to be an ingrained standard business protocol license a property then pretend you own it.
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