Page 1 of 2

Who owns RiD?

Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:44 pm
by BWprowl
This occurred to me last night: Do we know where the rights to RiD currently lie? I know way back when Disney bought Saban and the rights to all their shows that RiD was reportedly in with all of those, though it wasn’t readily apparent that Disney even knew they had it. But a couple years ago Saban Productions became their own thing again, got all the rights to their shows back (presumably, I think we’ve really only seen them do anything with Power Rangers), and took their party to Nickelodeon. So in between all that moving and what I can only assume is all the companies involved pretty much forgetting that RiD even existed, do we know *who* currently owns the thing?

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:56 pm
by Gomess
That's a damn good question. Do Hasbro have no say in the matter, as the original IP owners? Or heck, is that actually Takara??

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 3:08 pm
by andersonh1
I want that show on DVD. I've been digitizing my old VHS off-air tapes, but I want the whole thing in Region 1 DVD, including the episodes that never aired. I hope someone figures the rights out and releases it in the US.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 3:13 pm
by BWprowl
Gomess wrote:That's a damn good question. Do Hasbro have no say in the matter, as the original IP owners? Or heck, is that actually Takara??
Licensing can get tricky that way, look at Spider-Man between Sony and Marvel.

The thing about RiD the show is that Hasbro wasn't super big into self-licensing of their own shows/fiction the way they are today. It's why the G1 cartoon and BW were released on DVD by like two different licensors. RiD was primarily owned by the company that produced it as the tweaked dub of Car Robots it was: Saban, in this case. There's also the regional thing: Saban's rights over RiD may very well extend to letting them be the sole proprieters of RiD and/or Car Robots here in the west, similar to how their control over Power Rangers disqualifies other companies from licensing and releasing Super Sentai on DVD over here, or the whole Macross/Robotech clusterfuck.

I'm just wondering who *has* it. Did Saban get it when they recovered their catalog from Disney, or did they just leave it with them because they forgot/didn't care about it? Does either company even know or care that they're holding onto the rights for it?
andersonh1 wrote:I want that show on DVD. I've been digitizing my old VHS off-air tapes, but I want the whole thing in Region 1 DVD, including the episodes that never aired. I hope someone figures the rights out and releases it in the US.
This is the primary reason I'm asking about it. I mean, if I really want to watch through RiD again, I'm sure I could just pirate it from somewhere, but being able to get it on official, dedicated DVD would be nice.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:51 pm
by Shockwave
I'm not gonna lie, I did pirate it. But, I too would be willing to shell out cash for an official dvd set. Pirated shows don't come with extras like creator commentaries and behind the scenes things or writer/cast interviews like dvds usually do.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:00 am
by Onslaught Six
Back when the Headmasters and crap was getting released, I put in a tweet and a few emails to Shout Factory asking if they had it; and if they didn't, if they knew who to contact to get it. Unfortunately, nobody there knew anything about where the rights lie.

I know Saban got back pretty much everything else they were ever involved in, including crap like Next Mutation which I'm sure had its own huge batch of licensing hurdles to plow through. (Then again, since Saban is all chummy with Nick/Viacom, who currently own the Turtles, it might not have been as messy as we thought.)

I remember at one point, Hasbro claimed that they had "regained" the rights to every cartoon that had aired in the US; this was mostly referring to G1, BW and even Animated (which is why they can air those on the Hub), but RID has been conspicuously absent, making me think that somewhere along the line, they missed one.

Interestingly enough, a cursory glance at Saban's Wiki page has a list of all the stuff they own now, which includes shit from that late-90s early-2000s Saban era like Digimon, Cubix: Robots For Everyone, and Sonic X, so clearly even random shit from that era hasn't been forgotten by Saban. I wonder if Disney is just holding on to it because of how long they've had it, or refuses to give it back to Hasbro for a reasonable amount. If Saban were trying to get it, I assume it would mostly be for the purpose of turning right around and selling it back to Hasbro, making a tidy profit in the process.

It's a shame Hasbro isn't as approachable as, say, Shout Factory or IDW is. I'd love to be able to just tweet at them and get an answer.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2013 5:48 pm
by Tigermegatron
Onslaught Six wrote:Back when the Headmasters and crap was getting released, I put in a tweet and a few emails to Shout Factory asking if they had it; and if they didn't, if they knew who to contact to get it. Unfortunately, nobody there knew anything about where the rights lie.

I know Saban got back pretty much everything else they were ever involved in, including crap like Next Mutation which I'm sure had its own huge batch of licensing hurdles to plow through. (Then again, since Saban is all chummy with Nick/Viacom, who currently own the Turtles, it might not have been as messy as we thought.)

I remember at one point, Hasbro claimed that they had "regained" the rights to every cartoon that had aired in the US; this was mostly referring to G1, BW and even Animated (which is why they can air those on the Hub), but RID has been conspicuously absent, making me think that somewhere along the line, they missed one.

Interestingly enough, a cursory glance at Saban's Wiki page has a list of all the stuff they own now, which includes shit from that late-90s early-2000s Saban era like Digimon, Cubix: Robots For Everyone, and Sonic X, so clearly even random shit from that era hasn't been forgotten by Saban. I wonder if Disney is just holding on to it because of how long they've had it, or refuses to give it back to Hasbro for a reasonable amount. If Saban were trying to get it, I assume it would mostly be for the purpose of turning right around and selling it back to Hasbro, making a tidy profit in the process.

It's a shame Hasbro isn't as approachable as, say, Shout Factory or IDW is. I'd love to be able to just tweet at them and get an answer.
since AEC,RID,Beast wars & BM hasn't aired on the hub network yet. it's debattable if hasbro owns or bought back the BROADCAST rights. Having the distribution DVD'S selling rights might be far different than obtaining the broadcast rights.

Since Hasbro keeps things private,it's unknown if the reasons are option 1,2 or 3. option 1 being,hasbro thinks that particular TF cartoomn series is awful & it won't bring in decent viewrship rattings. Option 2 being,It's on Hasbro hub network future release schedule,it'll appear on the hub when hasbro thinks it's the proper time to air the TF series. Option 3,Hasbro wasn't able to buy back the broadcast rights,they were only able to buy back the DVD selling distribtion rights.

Personally I think any other previous cartoon series would be far better series to air on the hub network compared to TFA & rescue bots

It's worth a serios mention,If you want to see the 2001 RID cartoon series in it's finest perfection ,you've gotta go the RID UK Metrodome complete series. I got mine for 80% off years ago on amazonuk.com when they had those super clearance sales. For those un-aware the Hasbro USA version of Rid took away a episode & heavily editted some scenes due to it airing when 9/11 happened. The UK Metrodome Rid complete serious didn't take away any episodes nor heavily edit scenes/dialogue.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2013 6:04 pm
by Tigermegatron
Onslaught Six wrote:Back when the Headmasters and crap was getting released

Hasbro is foolish & cheap for not jumping at the change to spend the meager pocket change to hire voice actors & a effects studio to translate the Headmasters,masterforce & victory series into english then air them on the hub network. Doing this can't be that exspesive nor hard nor time consuming considering nick,CN & Disney doing it all the time world wide for all their cartoons their air on the networks.
Onslaught Six wrote: I know Saban got back pretty much everything else they were ever involved in, including crap like Next Mutation which I'm sure had its own huge batch of licensing hurdles to plow through.
Hasbro's Hub network is currently airing "The Next Mutation" series. I've seen a few episodes,they look like garbage,it smells of low quality low budget hacks doing this series.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:13 am
by Onslaught Six
Tigermegatron wrote:
Onslaught Six wrote:Back when the Headmasters and crap was getting released

Hasbro is foolish & cheap for not jumping at the change to spend the meager pocket change to hire voice actors & a effects studio to translate the Headmasters,masterforce & victory series into english then air them on the hub network. Doing this can't be that exspesive nor hard nor time consuming considering nick,CN & Disney doing it all the time world wide for all their cartoons their air on the networks.
It's not "meager pocket change," voice actors cost money because they need to be paid a living wage. They could have hired shitty voice actors to do it, but then everyone would complain that it wasn't the surviving G1 cast doing it. (For example, Peter Cullen would cost a lot of fucking money.)

Furthermore, it wouldn't have been Hasbro paying for it, it would've been Shout Factory, who has a lot less money than Hasbro.
It's worth a serios mention,If you want to see the 2001 RID cartoon series in it's finest perfection ,you've gotta go the RID UK Metrodome complete series. I got mine for 80% off years ago on amazonuk.com when they had those super clearance sales. For those un-aware the Hasbro USA version of Rid took away a episode & heavily editted some scenes due to it airing when 9/11 happened. The UK Metrodome Rid complete serious didn't take away any episodes nor heavily edit scenes/dialogue.
Or just pirate the episodes, which are sourced from those same DVDs.

In either case, presumably a US release would be uncut as well, since those cuts weren't done by Hasbro or Saban, but rather by Fox, the US distributor.

Re: Who owns RiD?

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:45 am
by Gomess
You really think the TV audience would watch Headmasters?

I'm not so sure that's a good idear.