Robotech/Battletech ripoff...

[hexjumper]

We were talking, at one point, in Paper Heroes about how designs from Robotech found their way into Battletech.

Here's how that happened:

During the production of Macross, Big West and Studio Nue (the actual creators of the series) brought Tatsunoko on board to handle international distribution. Among other deals, Tatsunoko licensed Macross, including rights to mechanical designs, character designs, and merchandise, to Harmony Gold. Harmony Gold used these rights to make Robotech. Meanwhile, Studio Nue separately licensed the mechanical designs and concept art to FASA, for use in Macross.

This wound up with two North American companies holding the rights to the mechanical designs. After several lawsuits (note, IIRC, that FASA never lost), FASA simply gave up and stopped using the designs, and all of the other Japanese designs they'd licensed. Harmony Gold then went on to attack others that attempted to import Macross merchandise or sequel series. Somewhere in here, Big West and Studio Nue worked out what had happened, and in 2002, the sued Tatsunoko over rights to the series.

The outcome of the court case (as far as I can tell from the English news stories) was that Big West and Studio Nue owned the mechanical and character designs and merchandising rights. Tatsunoko had had no right to sell those to Harmony Gold. However, because of some oddity of Japanese copyright law regarding works for hire, the contract between Big West/Studio Nue and Tatsunoko was interpreted as employment of the former by the latter, giving Tatsunoko the rights to the "production" of the original Macross series.

forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=393965

-Darren MacLennan